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DOBELL COLLECTION 



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NARRATIVE, 

BY 

lUfll. DENIS O'BRYEN, 

IN CONSEQVSNCfi OF THE ATTACK. MADE UPON HIM Br 

X 

Q%t Hon. % <0. Bennett* 

IN THE 

HOUSE OF COMMONS, 

ON TUESDAY, THE 17th OF OCTOBER, 18*0. 



IN THREE PARTS. 



Hontron: 

Printed by G. Sidney, Northumberland Street, Strand. 



205449 
'13 



Part the First. 

From the death of Mr. Pitt to the death of Mr. Fox. 

Part the Second. 

From the death of Mr, Fox to the spring of 1 8 16 21 

Part the Third. 
From 1 8 1 6 to the present day..... 39 



* # * Into whatever hands this pamphlet may fall, the 
temporary possessor is entreated to do, in regard to it, ' as 
he would be done unto.* There will be only six copies struck 
off at first. Further circulation must depend upon circum- 
stances. At all events, the writer supplicates that he may 
be allowed to make it a point of honour with the reader, 
that the work may not be seen by any person connected 
with newspapers — or other publications. 

November the 2ld, 1820. 



December the 2d, 1820. 

According to the intimation given above, only six copies 
of this Narrative were struck off on Thursday morning, the 
23 d of November. One of those six was enclosed to Mr. 
Bennett — but only a few hours before the two Houses of 
Parliament met, on that day. The quickness of the Pro- 
rogation prevented the writer's knowing what the intentions 
of Mr. Bennett were, with regard to reparation on the 
scene of the attack. 

The diffusion of this work to this day, (the 2d of Decern- 
ber, IS 20 J is confined to the six copies referred to above. 
Shoidd the pamphlet, diverging a little beyond that small 
circle, reach those still surviving persons named in it, the 
communication, to such, will not be the worst voucher of 
the author's confidence in the invulnerableness of his state- 
ments. 

21, Craven Street, Strand. 






NARRATIVE, 



BY 

MR. DENIS OBRYEN, 

#c. 8$c. 



PART THE FIRST. 



From the death of Mr. Pitt to the death oj 
Mr. Fox. 

On Thursday, the 23d of January, 1806, Mr. 
Pitt departed this life. The next day (the 24th) 
was Mr. Fox's birth-day. Though engaged to 
dine at Mr. Fox's, in celebration of his birth- 
day, I made my accustomed morning call in 
Arlington Street, where Mr, Fox then resided. 
At this call Mr. Fox addressed the following 
words to the late General Fitz-Patrick and to 
myself, who alone were in the room, besides 
Mrs. Fox. 

" Now that poor Pitt is gone, I am at liberty 
to tell you, that he and I had a private meeting, 
at a time when the two parties were so furious 
that arms only were wanting to their falling upon 
each other. Pitt and I, in perfect tranquillity, 
talked for two hours— we could not agree— but 
neither was at liberty to say any thing regarding 
the interview, until the other was dead. We 
met at that time at a Lady's house — (Aye, my 
Car,* interposed Mrs. Fox ; and did not I, who 
was in the secret, keep it close ?) " In fact," con- 

* Car was an abbreviation of Carlo-— an endearing appella- 
tion frequent with Mrs. Fox. 

A2 



tinued Mr. Fox, " Pitt and I had another meet- 
ing* long after thejirst," he. &c. 

On the Monday after this communication, 
viz. on the 27th of January, 1806, the late 
King authorised Lord Grerwille, at that, his 
Lordship's first interview with His Majesty sub- 
sequently to the death of Mr. Pitt, to consult 
with Mr. Fox upon the formation of a new 
government. Upon each of the nights of Mon- 
day, Tuesday and Wednesday, (the 27th, 28th, 
and 29th of January, 1S06,) Mr. Fox at his 
nightly return from Lord Grenville, between 
nine and ten o'clock, detained me, he having pre- 
viously fixed me to be in waiting for him, even 
until after he had performed his ablutions, and 
went to bed — (Mrs. Fox retiring at the com- 
mencement of his preparations) — and he not 
allowing me to come away till, in his night gown, 
with his night- cap in his hand, he ascended one 
flight of stairs to his chamber, while I descended 
the other, to return home. Posterior events 
proved to me that Mr. Fox was quite unreserved 
in his communications to me upon those nights. 
Excepting Lord Grenville, and, possibly, Mr. 
Thomas Grenville, I am quite sure that my know- 
ledge, as to the then forming Cabinet, and the 
other principal destinations, was prior to that of 
any other wtf/z— living or dead. 

During the entire week to which I am alluding, 
I never once touched upon my own interest. — 
Not so Mr. Fox. Towards the close of our 
conversation on the night of Tuesday the 28th 
(Jan. 1806) Mr. Fox ejaculated this sentence, 
* O'Bryen, I want a good man for America* I 

* The reader is requested to keep this second meeting be- 
tween those mighty adversaries in his memory, at the perusal 
of page 49. 



remained perfectly silent. About the same time 
upon the next night, (Wednesday the 29th) 
looking at me with unusual earnestness, Mr. Fox 
said, * O'Bryen cant you think of a good man. 
for America.' To misunderstand the drift of the 
question was impossible ; but I made no answer. 
On the day after Mr. Fox's first hint about 
America, namely on the 29th, I mentioned this 
incident to Mr., now the Lord Chief Commis- 
sioner Adam, at my own house, remarking to 
the Lord Chief Commissioner my surprise at Mr. 
Fox's not adverting to the utter impossibility of 
my leaving London, on account of the nature and 
number of my perplexities, with which he (Mr. 
Fox) was as well acquainted as the Lord Chief 
Commissioner, or myself. The Lord Chief Com- 
missioner (fully sensible of the impracticability of 
any arrangement of my private concerns without 
pecuniary means which to me were wholly inacces- 
sible) said, 'You of course have no objection to my 
suggesting that mission to Erskine. It would be 
just the thing for David f (meaning the eldest son 
of the now Lord Erskine.} ' On the contrary, I 
shall be very happy at his obtaining the appoint- 
ment,' was my most hearty and ready reply. 

From about the time of the Commons'' vote 
against the late Lord Melville (8th of April 1805) 
up to the death of Mr. Pitt I had laboured in 
partisanship with a carelessness of my own health 
which had nearly proved fatal to me. Except- 
ing the Resolutions for the Middlesex Meeting 
(which were written by Mr. Creevy) almost every 
thing fell upon me,— Resolutions — Addresses to 
the King— -Petitions to Parliament, &c. &c Ne- 
ver did mortal work harder or more variously, or 
more improvidently for his own frame, than I 



worked in those nine months. The winter set in 
with uncommon severity. From Thursday the 
SOth to Monday evening the 3d of February (1806) 
I was forced to keep my bed or bed-room. Pending 
this confinement the following communications 
took place. 

On Thursday the SOth of January (1806) I 
received from Mr. (now Alderman and Sheriff) 
Walthman an urgent letter for Mr. Fox's senti- 
ments respecting notices, given upon that day, 
of some contemplated proceedings in the Court 
of Common Council. In consequence of Mr. 
Waithman's earnest letter, which was delivered 
to me in bed at nine in the evening, I got up and 
wrote a note to Mr. Fox, to which the following 
was the answer. 

< Dear O'B. 

' I like Mr. Waithman's plan much, if he is sure of 
' success ; but I fear he may be jockeyed by a day being 
' fixed too early for congratulating the K — on the new 
' Ministry ; because I suppose that can hardly be done 
' upon mere rumour ; and I do not think (let things go 
1 ever so right) that any of us shall kiss hands before 
' Monday. I submit all this to Combe, Thorpe and 
1 Waithman, who will I dare say manage it well. There 
' might no doubt be thanks for removal ; but that would 
' not be so satisfactory as thanks after the names are 

* known. 

' Your's ever, 
■ Thursday Night: « C. J. F. 

1 Do you know that there is an advertisement in the 

• Morning Post declaring an anonymous candidate ?' 

On the same Thursday (the 30th of January 
1 806,) Mrs. Fox kindly remembered me in my 
sick bed, as follows. 



' There is no news good bad or indifferent. They were 
' obliged to send an excuse as they were not ready. It 

* will be to-morrow or next day. It is a dreadful cold day, 
- You had better not go out. 

' Your's ever, 

f E. F.' 

On Friday morning (the 3 1 st of January 1 806) 
Mrs. Fox thus wrote to me,* still confined to my 
room. 

* There is nothing known yet. As soon as it is, I will 

* let you know/ 

On the night of the same day, Mrs. Fox wrote 
thus. 

' I dare say you have heard before this that the K — 
' told Lord Grenville he could not give him an answer 
' to-day but that he should have one in eight and forty 

* hours. I hope he does not mean to play them any 
< ***. I hope your cold is better. This is dreadful 
' weather. 

e Your's ever, 
« Friday Night' « E. FOX. 

On Saturday the 1st of February (1806) the 
present King, then Prince of Wales, went after 
the Opera to Mr. Fox in Arlington-street and 
remained with Mr. F. till between 1 and 2 o'clock 
in the morning. After the Prince's departure, 
even at that unseasonable hour, Mr. Fox wrote 
to me as follows. 

< Dear O'B. 

* All is off. The K. asked some questions relative to 
' a paragraph in our Propositions respecting the necessity 

* of considering the Army and Home Defence ; and 
' not being satisfied with Lord G.'s answers, said he 
' would reconsider the whole of the thing. This was 

* All the documents copied into this narrative are extant and 
in my possession. 



8 

1 between nine and ten to-night ; and he afterwards sent 
i to Lord Hawkesbury to be with him to-morrow morn 
' ing at eleven. So the thing rests. There has been no 
' schism among us of any kind whatever. 
1 Your's ever, 
< Saturday Night.' < C. J. FOX. 

' If any thing can be done in the Common Council 
• by way of Address to the K — , to form a strong and 
' vigorous Administration, it will be very good ; but it 
' should not be attempted unless success be pretty sure. 
' Your's ever, 

<c.j. f: 

On Monday evening the 3d of February (1806) 
I became convalescent and went to Arlington- 
street. Whilst proceeding thither, the acceptance 
or rejection of the new government by the King, 
was literally in the scales. Lord Grenville carried 
his list to the King ; and on my arrival in Arling- 
ton-street, Mr. Fox was as ignorant as myself 
of the King's decision. In a few minutes, Lord 
Grenville's return from Buckingham House being 
announced, Mr. Fox went down stairs to his 
Lordship; and, coming shortly after back to 
the drawing-room, with a voice and manner 
which seemed prophetic of a new world of woes, 
said — « It's all settled !' 

All the new Ministers kissed hands for their 
offices on Wednesday the 5th (February 1806) 
except Mr. Fox — who kissed hands only on 
being restored to the Privy Council. Having 
important business in the House of Commons on 
the Wednesday and Thursday Mr. Fox did not 
take the seals till Friday the 7th. Rumour 
started Colonel Elliott as a probable Candidate for 
Westminster ; and it is a remarkable coincidence, 
that while Mr. Fox drove by us in St. James's 
Park, on Wednesday the 5th, returning from 



9 



Buckingham House, I was in the very act of 
receiving Colonel Elliott's personal assurance, that 
' he never once thought of such a thing as dis- 
turbing Mr. Fojcs re-election upon that, or upon 
any other, occasion' — a declaration to which I 
have endeavoured to render due homage in a 
series of publications headed ( Westminsteriana' 
previous to the first conflict between Mr. G. 
Lamhe and Mr. Hobhouse in 1819. 

On Thursday the 8th of February (1806) Air. 
Fox wrote to me as follows. 

' My writ is to be moved to-morrow, that is if there is 
6 a ballot, if not God knows when. Tell every member 
' you see to go down to the ballot to-morrow. It is 
' Middlesex, but it is supposed to be all settled. 
« Your's, 

< Thursday 6 o'clock.' f C. J. F. 

Although, in order to constitute this ballot I 
made the best muster in my power, there were 
only 98 members in the House at uve minutes 
before four o'clock on Friday the 7th. Finding 
the present Earl of Harewood, then Mr. Las- 
celles, and Mr. Travanion, late Member for Dover, 
in Mrs. Bennett's room, (both evidently shying 
the ballot,) I urged Travanion as an old friend 
to risk the ballot, assuring him that a Committee 
for Middlesex was mere matter of form — aiming 
my discourse at Lord Harewood without directly- 
addressing him. His Lordship, with inerrable 
good nature said, ' he would risk the shot, if Tra- 
vanion would [' Both instantly ascended to the 
House, and had only gotten inside the door a 
few seconds before four o'clock. The writ was 
moved ; and on the next day (the 8th of February) 
I received the following. 



10 

1 Dear OB. 
' Pray call here if you can immediately. Browning* 
1 says he cannot get the writ and that all the other writs 
' are got to their proper destination. He is afraid that 
' your over care may have caused this exception. By 
1 some strange fatality I forgot an advertisement. I sup- 

* pose it will not be too late to get one into the evening 
' papers. I will endeavour to get one ready by the time 
4 you come. 

' Your's ever, 
■ Downing St. 20 m past 12/ * C. J. F. 

Among the hardships (almost as numberless 
and variegated as the trials of Job) to which my 
desire of being right myself and of making others 
so, too frequently exposed me in party concerns, the 
wish of saving the pockets of Mr. Fox's friends, 
by the prevention of useless waste of money in 
Westminster Elections, was not of the least or 
the most transient. Endeavours to counter- 
act the prodigal habits, in too many of his 
supporters, which the great contests of 1784 and 
88 had generated, excited against me much male- 
volence. It was under impressions of this com- 
plexion that I wrote the following letter, previous 
to the re-election upon the vacancy caused by Mr. 
Fox's becoming a Minister in 1 806. 

* To the High Bailiff of Westminster, and to his 
Carpenter Mr. Glanville. 

' Please to observe that, having delivered to you Mr. 

* High Bailiff, a resolution, on Friday last, agreed to on 
' the preceding evening, namely, on Thursday last the 
' 6th instant, at a Committee of Mr. Fox's friends held 
' at the Crown and Anchor tavern, which resolution is in 
' these words, 

" That it is the opinion of this Meeting that the 
'* High Bailiff be informed, that this Meeting thinks 

• The High Bailiff of Westminster. 



11 



M that the least expensive Hustings, consistent with 

" the safety and convenience of the Assemblage at 

" the place of Election, will be perfectly sufficient ;" — 

' having also, over and over, repeated the same thing to 

« you Mr. High Bailiff— having distinctly stated to you 

1 Mr, Qlanvitte, that I would go with you to the spot, and 

* consult with you as to the erection of such a slight 
' structure of boards as, without danger to the persons 

* collected, may be necessary to an operation not likely 
' to last more than one hour — you, Mr, Glanville, having 
' made great progress in a Hustings which you guess at 
( SOOZ. without having given to me the least notice of 
' your being to commence the same — be so good, under 

* all these circumstances, to observe that, Mr, Fox will 

* not be answerable for any useless waste of money. 

(Signed) <D. O'BRYEN. 

< Craven Street, February 11, 1806.' 

After enclosing the above notice, for Mr. Foxs 
opinion, I instantly had it back with the following 
answer. 

« Dear O'B. 
c I entirely approve of your note ; as I do assure you 

* I have no inclination to be robbed. 

* Your's ever, 
'5 o'clock,' «C. J. F. 

Notwithstanding the above declaration of Mr, 
Fox, there were, among his Westminster sup- 
porters, who (with good intentions, but mis- 
takenly as I humbly presume) deemed it for 
the credit of Mr, Fox ' to be robbed' in more 
than one way, upon his re-election as a Mi- 
nister ; although, in fact, he so far resembled 
Sir Francis Wronghead, that it would be some 
time before he could touch the first quarter's 
salary. At all events, the result of yielding to 
the gentlemen alluded to was this : Mr, Fox's 
re-election in 1806, (which was over in one 
hour) cost more, by upwards of i?100 than 



12 

the contest of 1802, after a nine clays' poll, 
— when I, sovereign lord and master during 
that conflict, permitted not the disbursement of 
one shilling not authorized by myself; and re- 
seated Mr. Fox for less than 3001. (the charges 
for the hustings excepted,) without stinting any 
necessary service. 

Until Mr. Fox was re-elected, which happened 
to be on Thursday, the 13th of February, (1806) 
I forgot myself, my illness, and my interest. The 
antecedent ten months worsted me to the full 
amount of ten years ordinary wear and tear of 
the human anatomy. I was preparing to leave 
London for the Inn at Shooter's Hill, on Friday 
the 14th of February : viz. the day after Mr. 
Fox's re-election, when I received the following 
note : 

c Mr. Fox wishes to speak to you at the office. He 
c will be there soon after 11, and the sooner you can be 
* there after that time the better. He begs you to send 
' up your name as soon as you get there. 
c Your's, &c. 

« E. FOX. 
' Arlington Street, Friday Morning, 10 o'clock.' 

Though upon the preceding day (Thursday) 
on the hustings at Covent Garden, on the next 
day, (Friday,) I was unable to rise from my bed 
till evening. In my bed I received the above 
note from Mrs. Fox ; and about two o'clock on 
the same day, still in my bed, the following from 
Mr. Fox. 

< Dear O'B. 
c Pray come as soon as you can, for I can have no ease 
' of mind till I have seen you. 

' Your's ever, 
1 Downing Street, near 2.' ' C. J. FOX. 



13 

The above two notes imply some interchange 
of communication between Mr. Fox's re-election 
on Thursday the 13th of February (1806), and 
the receipt by me of the above two notes on the 
next day, Friday the 14th, in my bed. Such 
implication is quite correct. There was such 
interchange of communication. The communi- 
cations are extant ; but they shall never be seen 
by any human eye, except, eventually, the eye of 
Lord Holland. In case his Lordship wishes to 
see a letter from Mr. Fox to me, written at a 
late hour on Thursday night, after returning to 
Arlington Street, from his re-election dinner at the 
Crown and Anchor tavern, and my answer to the 
same at a still later hour of the same night — the 
perusal of both is at Lord Holland's command. I 
might probably comprehend Mrs. Fox as well as 
Lord Holland within the just stated exception ; 
only that, if Mrs. Fox's memory be retentive, 
the impartment to that Lady, would, of all possible 
persons, be a work of surplusage. This, in the 
progress of my narrative, is the place for me 
to quote from a letter of my own to Mr* Wind- 
ham, to which letter more allusion will be found 
in Part 2, (see page 22) the following words. 
'Whatever may befal me, no provocation from any 
quarter shall ever tempt me to do other than exalt, 
as far as I can, the name and fame of him whom of 
the whole male creation, I loved next to heaven/ 

Now to proceed. 

Surprise had been expressed at the time of my 
appointment and has been often since repeated, 
that I should have accepted such an office as the 
Deputy Paymaster Generalship of the Forces, on 
the change of Ministry in February 1 806/ No 
vilification as to the rank of an office (in which 



H 

two brothers of a Duke were my predecessor and 
successor) is to be inferred from either that sur- 
prise in by standers, or from my allegation of its 
existence. The observation refers only to the 
unsuitableness of its salary to a nearly thirty 
years' toiler in the field of politics, as I had been. 
The fact, however, is that Mr. Fox meant that 
situation as a mere adjunct to other things \ and, 
at all events, I had no alternative between taking 
it, or disobliging Mr. Fox to the greatest possible 
degree. From my bed I dictated a note to Mr. 
Fox, after I had received the above two billets — 
' that I was too ill to venture out of doors,' — to 
which note my servant brought back to me from 
the Foreign Office the following Letter. 

" DearO'B. 
' I will call in Craven Street, if possible, soon 
' after five. I am vexed to the quick, yet cannot ac~ 
' cuse myself of any omission or neglect towards you. 

* If you do not wish to disoblige me to the greatest possible 

* degree, let me intreat of you not to go out of town till 
' you have accepted the Deputy Paymastership for your- 

* selfy or authorized me to do so for you. I do not know 
' whether Lord I. Townshend is in town, but it is impos- 
' sible for W. H.* to have the place. 

< Your's ever ? 
' Downing Street, Friday.' * C. J. F? 

Friday meant Friday the 14th of February 
(1806) the day after Mr. Fox's re-election and 
the seventh day from his taking the seals of the 
Foreign Office. 

On the coming of the above letter I got out of 
bed ; and received Mr. Fox about the time he had 
fixed. Never was meeting — never waspartingmore 

* W. H. was a friend of Mr. F.'s and mine, for whom I had 
suggested the place in question. 



15 

mutually affectionate. Liberties have been aken 
with the name of Mr. Fox in regard to my un- 
provided situation. But if the elements com- 
posing that judgment were analyzed, the goodwill 
to me of some among the most vehement of the 
Judgers would be found a mole hill — the malevo- 
lence to Mr* Fox, a mountain. Never had mortal 
the slightest sanction from me to venture upon 
such a criticism. In life or death, the only arbiters 
between Mr. Fox and me were — are — and ever 
shall be hi3 eternally beloved memory — and my 
God. 

Of all the subjects of the Crown of England 
there was only one man more deserving of com- 
passion than Mr. Fox, upon his getting into 
government in 1806, and that man was — the 
humble writer hereof. Worried, harassed, persecu- 
ted with insatiate, indefatigable, inexorable impor- 
tunities as Mr. Fox himself was, he, at all events, 
was a joint architect of the administration, and 
possessed his fair proportion of power. But / 
was a worm, destitute of all means of advancing 
others, or myself. Destructively however to my 
peace of mind, and all but fatally for my life, 
I was unfortunately deemed the best conduit 
to Mr. Fox. Before I proceed farther, I do here 
with a blistered memory, as fresh, (notwithstand- 
ing the interlapse of near fifteen years,) as if the 
scald was of yesterday— here, in this passage of 
my little work, I do, from my heart's inmost 
core, imprecate the curses of God upon pre- 
tenceless sporters of speculative applications. 
Had Mr. Fox been invested with all the patron- 
age of all the cabinet, the totality of that patron- 
age would not have been a mouthful for the 
remorseless cupidities by which he was circum- 



16 

valladcd. Still he was a Minister ; but the tor- 
tures visited upon me were wanton, dishonest, 
unfeeling and cruel. Even to the present hour 
I have no less than four-scores of letters, (aimed 
at Mr. Fox, but addressed to me,) of which I 
certainly never read more than the first para- 
graph. If, instead of utter incapacity for writing, 
I had been in robustious health, answers to so 
many supplications were out of the pale of pos- 
sibility, for a man who was obliged to be his 
own secretary. From the hopelessness of answer- 
ing all, I scarcely answered any. The infliction 
of wrong upon me is so habitual as to become 
almost matter of course. The most barbarous 
however, of all malignities was the accusation of 
my having heaped the baskets full of requisi- 
tions sent straightways to Mr. Fox himself, by 
the super-addition of those which came to me. 
Never was charge more false. Of the mass 
of solicitations to Mr. Fox, through me, I neither 
wrote, nor spoke, to him of more than the fol- 
io wing four. 

First, and chief, a command to me from the 
present King, to lay before Mr. Fox as soon as 
possible, the object of a friend of his then Royal 
Highness, which friend was himself the bearer to 
me of the Prince's message. Double duty was 
imperative regarding this Royal message. I 
faithfully delivered it: — Lords Lauderdale and 
Holland being at the time in the Secretary of 
State's chamber, but not within hearing. Second- 
ly, I obtained from Mr. Fox an interview for the 
late Mr. John Latouche 9 without my knowing 
or asking Mr. Latouche's object. Thirdly, I 
did, at the earnest instance of a banking Firm, 
(from which Firm both Mr. Fox and I had in 



17 



past times derived pecuniary convenience) convey 
to Mr. Fox the anxiety of that Banking firm for 
having the office account of the Secretary for 
Foreign affairs. This third communication I 
could not consistently decline, although my own 
anticipations prepared me for an unavoidable 
preference in favour of the firm of Coutts and 
Co. — The fourth and final interposition on my 
part of any possible pursuit from any possible 
applicant, was that of a certain, or rather of an 
uncertain, nobleman, whose identification is im- 
practicable, even if he were in the land of the 
living, for a rise in the Peerage. Mr. Foz's an- 
swer to my note, (for I was too ill to see him J 
aids me for more than one purpose in the present 
crisis, and, therefore, the answer is inserted here. 
This letter was written on the 6th of March, 
(1806.) 

< Dear O'B. 

i I think as you do exactly about the election,* but it 
' cannot now be prevented, nor, I fear, altered. 

4 1 shall appoint a time to see Lord ■ as soon as I 

6 can, for half an hour, probably Friday or Saturday. 
' You need not tell hira so, but there are at least twenty 
' Peerage Claimants whom I should prefer to him. 
' Thank you, my dear O'B. for your patience in what re- 

* lates to yourself -j and be assured it will not be the worse 

* for you, and if I have it in my power (which I still 
6 doubt) much better. What a fool that — — must be I 

6 Your's ever, 
1 Downing Street, TJiursday.' ' C. J. FOX. 

The above four comprehend all the applications 
from or through me to Mr. Fox, at the epoch 
of his ascent to power in 1806. The Westmin- 
ster soiicitants, alone, as may easily be imagined 

* Referring to a country Election. 
B 



IS 



after six contests, and three re-elections, these 
would have maddened any common mind. All 
found their way to, or directed their missils at, 
the standing target in Craven Street, upon which 
but of the whole importuning world, there still 
remains a miserable entail of unsatisfied, insatiate 
askers j and is sure to remain till the grave res- 
cues the individual from all his persecutors. The 
dangerous, invidious, and thankless task, however, 
of saving Mr. Fox, was resolutely performed by 
me, whilst I continued near him. That * i" turned 
my back upon him' has, I understand, been gravely 
imputed to me — Upon him whom I loved next 
to heaven — in whose hands my future destiny 
stood balanced ! Gravely to answer such a 
charge would imply nothing less than complexity 
of stultification. 

For the same reason which has induced me to 
print the preceding letter from Mr. Fox, I print 
the following from Mrs. Fox. It was written on 
the 6th of May (1806) and is a perfect index to 
Mr. Fox's feelings at that juncture. 

* My Dear Friend, 
1 1 have put off from day to day sending you my card, 
6 as 1 purposed having the pleasure of calling with it, 
' but as we have been out of town since Saturday, and 
' I am very busy for a few days to come, I send you the 
' inclosed for fear you should make some other engage- 
* ment, and I should be greatly mortified not to see you. 
9 Believe me ever very truly your's, 

'ELIZ.FOX.' 

If any fair doubt upon this point remain, I do 
hereby invite such fair doubter to further and 
more decisive proof, that the sentiment which 
Mr. Fox expressed of me in the above letter of 
the 6th of March was the transcript of his heart, 
to the close of his life. 



19 



Upon the recovery of my own health, the 
health of Mr. Fox engrossed my whole attention. 
Obtaining the ready concurrence of Lord Grey, 
I convened some of Mr. Fox's friends (among 
whom were four of the Ministers) at the Admi- 
ralty ; and exhibited two gentlemen to their joint, 
or separate investigation, (one being about the age 
of Mr. Fox himself, the other a clergyman, full 
four score) who had been cured of the dropsy by a 
Nostrumist. I rode, some hundreds of miles, to 
ascertain the cures of this practitioner. I pro- 
cured a patient for him at Lambeth, and paid him, 
not scantily, for his experiment upon that patient. 
The meeting at the Admiralty, upon the suggestion 
of Mr. Windham, concurred in by Lords Lans- 
downe, Hastings, Grey, &c. advised that I should 
present the cured patients and state the results of 
my research to Mr. Fox's physicians. I did so 
fully, at Mr. Fox's house in Stable Yard. 

Far, very far am I from blaming the Physicians 
for declining the co-operation of this Nostrumist ; 
or questioning that Mr. Fox's malady was treated 
according to the most erudite principles of medical 
science. The science, however, did not save the 
patient, He died in not many days thereafter. 



END OF PART I, 



B 2 



21 



PART THE SECOND. 



From the Death of Mr. Fox to the Spring of '1816. 

The death of Mr. Fox took place, alas ! upon the 
13th of September, (1806.) In a few days after 
that sad event, a political adversary but a personal 
well-wisher of mine (a Member of Parliament 
and generally in office in Mr. Pitt's administra- 
tions) stated his regret at my position ; warned 
me of certain disappointment from my post at 
the Cape ; and advised me to ask for a particular 
situation which he described, being in the patron- 
age of the Colonial Secretary of State, Mr. Wind- 
ham. Circumstances, not to be here detailed, 
had for some time raised in me the mortifying 
fear that Lord Holland (whom I had known from 
his childhood and loved infinitely) was not my 
friend. Perhaps my conclusion was erroneous. 
Mr. Rogers, and poor Sheridan assured me that 
it was so. At all events, the sincerity of my ap- 
prehensions upon that point decided me upon the 
decease of Mr. Fox, to select Lord Grey (then 
Lord Howick) for my political leader. The only 
pact I made was — that if ever he, Lord Grey, 
should find me deviating upon any occasion, from, 
that parent of all the virtues, truth, he should be 
at full liberty to renounce me ; but, upon that 
most important of all points, that I should expect 
a perfect reciprocation. His Lordship instantly 
admitted the justice of the condition. Though 



22 



I had known Lord Grey, and had the honour of 
his company to dinner, a little earlier than his 
connection with Mr. Fox y I had known Mr. 
Windham longer than Lord Grey. Still I deemed 
it right not to apply to Mr. Windham without 
consulting Lord Grey. Upon mentioning to his 
Lordship the suggestion which had been so kindly 
made to me, Lord Grey desired me to write to 
Mr. Windham for the appointment ; and to en- 
close my letter to him, Lord Grey. I immediately 
did so, taking no copy of the letter. From Mr. 
Windham I received no answer till the 9th of 
October. Mr. Windham, though in very civil 
terms, gave me a complete go by. Sensible how 
portentous to my interests would be the 'principle 
of Mr. Windham's decliner, should that principle 
become the fashion with his colleagues, I felt the 
vital necessity of replying to Mr. Windham's 
letter in much detail. Both those letters (Mr. 
Windham's of the 9th, and mine of the 10th of 
October (1806) ought properly to constitute an 
integral portion of this second part of my present 
work. The cruel continuation, however, of my 
illness having disabled me from commencing this 
pamphlet till Wednesday last the 15th instant 
(Nov. 1 820) having from the moment I am now 
writing only a few days for completing my task, to 
be in time for my object, I am forced to choose be- 
tween evils ; and for the sake of some typogra- 
phical convenience, to place those documents in 
an Appendix which should, else, be a part of my 
text. It is absolutely impossible to form a just 
opinion of my case without reading my reply to 
Mr. Windham. The letters alluded to compose, 
the Appendix No. 1 , and will be found in pages 
i.and ii. Again I declare it to be utterly impossible 



23 

to judge correctly of my case, unless by an accurate 
peruser of the documents contained in the said 
Appendix (No. 1.) The third letter in that Ap- 
pendix refers to all that occurred in consequence 
of my long statement, dated the 1 Oth of October 
( 1 806,) save the following short dialogue by ac- 
cident in the street. O'B. l Writing to me per- 
haps will embarrass you.' Mr. W. c Not If I could 
communicate as I wish/ O'B. € Is there any thing 
in my letter from which you dissent ?' Mr. W. c Not 
one word from the beginning to the end— -only if 
I could get others' 

At the word ' others', Mr. Windham stopped, 
leaving the sentence unfinished ; parted me shak- 
ing my hand; and bent his course, evidently 
musing. Whoever breaks faith with the dead is 
sure to be treacherous to the living. Mr. Wind- 
ham involved nobody. All that took place I have 
stated ; and that little all is the entire result of 
my letter of the 10th of October 1806. Although 
that letter has never before this juncture been in 
print, several persons have seen it. Lord John 
Townshend, Lord Wm. Bentinck, (the present 
Duke of Portland I believe, but am not quite 
certain,) the late Sir Philip Francis, by his very 
earnest request, the late Sir Arthur Piggott — all 
these have read the letter. The Lord Chief 
Commissioner Adam, and the late Sir Home Pop- 
ham had each a copy of it. 

No other notice than what I have described 
has ever been taken of that letter. My last 
effort for some reply (see the third letter in Ap- 
pendix No, 1) was dated March 10th, 1807. We 
were all turned out in a short time after. 

For many years of my early life I had recei- 
ved a succession of almost parental kindnesses 



24 

from the late Duke of Portland. In the fond- 
ness and familiarity of his intercourse with, and 
letters to me, all disparity between his gorgeous 
rank and my littleness was entirely forgotten. I 
have reason, however, to fear, though my intel- 
ligence was not from his Grace's own family, that 
the Duke sometimes suspected me of being the 
author of some of the attacks which were made 
upon him through the Morning Chronicle and 
other papers, between 1794 (the date of his dis- 
union with Mr. Fox) and his re-assent to the 
Premiership in 1807. This Bennettism, though not 
productive to me of all the evils which have been 
caused by the attack made upon me in the House 
of Commons on the 17th of the last month, was 
precisely as just as the latter. I should as soon 
have plunged a poinard into the Duke's breast, as 
written even one irreverent line against him. 
Still his indisposition towards me during his last 
Premiership was as remarkable as his predilection 
during his first, in 1783, — an epoch at which the 
sudden overthrow of his government blasted all 
my well warranted expectations. Though owing 
no obligation to the Duke in his last administra- 
tion I took a singular revenge upon his memory. 
In two or three days after his death, I gratified 
my own heart by that heart's sincerest testimo- 
nial to his virtues in as affectionate a biography 
as my small powers could compose — which article, 
though ephemeral, like all newspaper writing, 
had its share of notice at the time, and was un- 
expectedly followed by a signal mark of appro- 
bation from his noble son and successor. The 
present Duke's good will, as well as that of his 
brother Lord William, I believe I never lost. I 
am abou* to insert a proof (notwithstanding the 



25 

alienation at head quarters) of the then Marquis 
of Titchfield's wish to serve me. 

Extract of a letter from the present Duke of 
Portland to me, dated the 17th of April, 1807. 

*In consequence of what you write to me I will inform 
Lord Castlereagh that you have no longer any wish for 
the office in question.' 

That office was no other than the identical 
office concerning which I could not obtain even 
an answer from the Ministerial Survivors of Mr. 
Fox! 

The late Sir Home Popham was the oldest 
friend I had in this world ; and his untimely fall 
is, indeed, an afflicting augmentation to my cala- 
mities. Indefatigableness in the interest of his 
friends was among the characteristics of Sir 
Home Popham. During the troubles of the 
Duke of York the activities of Sir Home were 
incessant. Habitually estimating my humble 
faculties far beyond their real standard, he took 
the utmost pains to induce my advocation in 
favour of his royal friend. A bundle of his 
letters towards that object is now before me. 
Without breach of confidence they might make 
a part of this pamphlet. But they would swell its 
bulk, in a crisis of great haste ; and the purpose of 
printing them will be sufficiently accomplished by 
another document in this little work. 

Reading, by mere chance, at this house, my 
letter to Mr. Windham, Sir Home Popham la- 
boured, as zealously as if the cause was his own, 
to make me a partizan of the late Lord Melville. 
Though he failed in regard to both the Prince 
and the Peer, Sir Home made no secret of his 
contemplations. From his discourses sprung a 
rumour, which /like most rumours, had in it not 



26 



one particle of real fact. The monster of a hun- 
dred tongues dubbed me the * Prime minister of 
Lord Melville, to whom I was betraying the secrets 
of Mr. Fox ;' — the Prime Minister of a Noble- 
man to whom I never opened my lips in all my 
life, but once, — to whom I never wrote a line in 
all my life ; and from whom I never received 
one : — the betrayer of Mr. Fox, whom, (as far 
as I can utter the sentence without impiety) I 
would not betray to the Almighty. To this 
dreadful lie was added my supposed partizanship 
for the Duke of York. 

It is among the charms of the Lord Chief com- 
misioner Adam's kindness, that he can warn a 
friend, that a calumny is afloat against him, 
without involving the calumniator. He told 
me that he had heard the tale about Lord Mel- 
ville whispered upon the opposition bench in the 
House of Commons ; but he committed nobody : 
adding that he did not believe one word of the 
story. Sir Home Popham was setting off at that 
very time upon the Walcheren Expedition. Be- 
fore his departure I obtained, without the least 
reluctance on his part, the attestation inserted 
in Appendix No. 4. p. xviii. I enclosed the attesta- 
tion to Mr. Adam, at Wobourn. Mr. Adam's let- 
ter, franked from Wobourn, upon receiving it, 
will also be found in the same Appendix. 

Closing this topic of slander, I beg to add, that 
any person into whose hands this pamphlet may 
come, is by me invited to see Sir Home Popham 9 s 
letters respecting the Duke of York, as well „ as 
Lord Melville. To Lord Melville I could have 
rendered no benefit. Matters stood differently with 
the Duke of York. Undoubtedly I could have been 
of material use to his Royal Highness. T thought 



27 

his case a hard one. The depositary of his con- 
fidence betrayed him. An ordeal was applied 
to him by which not one of his accusers would 
consent to be tried himself. Why, then, did I 
resist the twenty times reiterated implorings of 
Sir Home Popham to follow up my own quite 
convinced opinion ? My native sod, — the land of 
my birth, — that is my only answer. It is said 
of my country, that if the Irish head be well 
searched, the potatoe will infalliably be found, 
somewhere. When advocation of the Duke of 
York could not fail to have benefitted me, I put a 
gag into my pen. When the whole controversy 
subsided, and my interposition was almost thank- 
less, I exposed the unfair measure which had 
been dealt to him. This my volunteering of the 
Royal Duke's cause was, in the Preface to the 
6 Regency Question ,' published in December, 
1810, upon the coming on of his late Majesty's 
last illness, and being a republication of a former 
pamphlet upon the first occurrence of that mala- 
dy, in 1788, written originally at the desire of the 
late Duke of Portland, before the arrival of Mr. 
Fox from Italy. In a couple of days after the 
re-publication alluded to (about Christmas 1810,) 
a person, of unsurpassed accuracy, within a quar- 
ter of an hour from a closet conference at Carlton 
House, thus addressed me in my own room : 
* It is but a few minutes since I heard your virtual 
Sovereign utter this sentence : " / shall never be 
able to shew my gratitude to O'Bryen for his 
resuscitation of theDuke of York* 9 My inform- 
ant then asked me, what I thought of restoring 
the Duke to the head of the army ? My answer 
was, that ' I had, (as my querist well knew,) been 
the disciple of a master whose maxim it was — that 



28 

in public affairs, " a steady performance of duty 
was the only wise rule ; and to take the chance 
for popularity. HLj very enemies acknowledged 
the merits of the Duke in hisjirst commander- 
ship in chief. Was it likely, after events, (then 
recent) that he would deteriorate f" 

Great was my pleasure at the royal Duke's 
re-instatement. But my experience saved me 
from disappointment, by the non-expectation of 
favour from— any quarter, 

Mr. Bennett has put my character upon its 
universal defence. The mention of the little 
work of the c Regency Question' reminds me of 
a passage in its preface which illustrates that charac- 
ter somewhat more truly than that honourable 
gentleman's invective against it on the 17th ult. 

In the fire of youth, and the ardour of Foxitism, 
I wrote a pamphlet, exactly 38 years since, 
against the administration of the first Marquis 
of Lansdowne. Out of that publication grew 
an error which I was anxious to have corrected ; 
and which that Noble Person could, of all man- 
kind, best rectify. Mr. Jekyll, with the good 
nature and sound judgment which never desert 
him, did not refuse to be the medium of my wish, 
to his high friend, a short time before his death ; 
and conveyed to me, with the prayed for correc- 
tion of the stated error, so magnanimous an 
oblivion of all former heats, in the Noble Marquis's 
own hand, as could not fail to exalt that distin- 
guished statesman in my admiration, while it filled 
my heart with gratitude. That gratitude I lived 
to manifest. 

Panegyrics upon the living may be suspected ; 
but what advancement can be hoped from the 
dull cold car of death ? The saltern donis* accu- 

* His saltern accumulem donis, et fun gar inani 

Munrrr ViROir,. 



29 



tnulem was my sincerely felt gratification, on the 
very day on which the noble Marquis breathed his 
last. Though universally profitless to me in 
every worldly sense was the metaphorical flower 
which, in a newspaper article, I scattered upon 
the coffin of the mighty dead ; yet, that inane 
munus yielded an enjoyment to me so much the 
more defecated, that all the influence of the go- 
vernment, when that very illustrious personage 
presided at the head of it, could not, in me, its 
humble author, generate a kindred sentiment to 
the tribute which 1 gratuitously paid to him in 
the tomb. These are not the arts that win the 
goddess Fortune. But they are the surest paths 
to living in charity, and dying in peace. 

Should it happen that Mr. Bennett is not satis- 
fied with the proofs of confidence in Mr. Fox to 
me, contained in the preceding pages, Lord Hoi- 
land, I apprehend, can furnish that Honourable 
gentleman with One Hundred and Forty fur- 
ther demonstrations to the same effect, in exactly 
the same number of letters from Mr. Fox to me, 
written as if one hand of the human body was 
communicating with the other, and by me deli- 
vered unconditionally to the Lord Chief Com- 
missioner Adam. Whilst I am candid to others, 
I must be just to myself. Universally mis-repre- 
sented as I am, I really will not forbear a few, 
perhaps very necessary lines, upon the subject of 
the letters alluded to. 

About eight or nine years since, in a confiden- 
tial, and always kind, conversation about my pri- 
vate plagues, the Lord Chief Commissioner A dam 
expressed his own and the Duke of Bedford's 
anxiety respecting the possible fate of Mr. Fox's 
letters to me, in the event of my death, or of any 



30 

unexpected exposure of my unarranged papers. 
Though, at first, repugnant to the idea of parting 
with any thing from Mr. Fox, reflection soon 
made me sensible of the reasonableness of Mr. 
Adam's suggestion. My spirits, though natu- 
rally buoyant, were often very low. My liberty 
might be taken from me ; and, pending its 
privation, a destructive inroad, upon what I 
valued millions of times more than furniture, 
may follow. The wishes of no two possible 
persons could impress me in a higher degree than 
those of the Duke of Bedford, and of Mr. Adam 
himself. 

I immediately began a search for, and perusal 
of, Mr. Fox's letters. The operation occupied 
several days. I transmitted in successive parcels 
to the Lord Chief Commissioner every letter in 
any way affecting the character of any body whe- 
ther alive or dead ; retaining only those which 
concerned my own private circumstances, or lite- 
rary criticism — the species of intellectual exercise 
in which Mr. Fox most delighted. Two incidents 
will convey to the reader some idea of the pro- 
bable value of those letters, if I were capable of 
that supremest baseness — the trafficking upon 
confidential communications. 

Mr. Debrett, the former bookseller, happened 
to call in here (as he does between whiles every 
year) while I was engaged in the assortment of 
the letters — with which my table was covered. 
Over the first that came to my hand, taken up 
promiscuously, I cast my eyes to see that it was a 
properly shewable letter. I asked Debrett what he 
thought might be the value of a biography, or 
such other work as he would credit me for the 
capacity of putting together, enriched with one 



31 



or two hundred letters (more or less like the one 
he had read) of Mr. Fox. I received the follow- 
ing sensible answer. ' If such a work were my 
property, I would print ten thousand before I sold 
one,' 

The other incident is as follows : 

While in the act of walking in a room at the 
Freemason's tavern, conversing with the Duke 
of Bedford, I felt my hand eagerly grappled by a 
person behind me, who uttered these words 
before I could disentangle my hand — € By G-— I 
will shake hands with you whether you will or 
no/ This individual was Lord Holland, with 
whom I had had no intercourse since the first 
month of Mr. Fox's ministry ; excepting a short 
note from me intimating the meeting convened 
at Lord Grey's, alluded to in page 19, and a long 
answer, delivered to me at the Admiralty, from 
his Lordship at the time of the said meeting. In 
some days after, mentioning this incident to Mr. 
Adam, the latter, apparently as by the authority 
of Lord Holland, explained Lord Holland's grap- 
ple and words as * an emotion of thanks for the 
voluntary surrender, on my part, of such letters 
as those of Mr. Fox to me.' Again then I repeat 
— if Mr. Bennett is not by this time sufficiently 
satisfied of the totality, the universal unreserved- 
ness of Mr. Fox's confidence in me (Mr. Fox's 
friend) so handsomely treated by him (Mr. Ben- 
nett) in the House of Commons at its last meeting, 
I beg leave to refer him to the honour and justice 
of Lord Holland with the one hundred and forty 
proofs in his Lordship's hands. (I confess, how- 
ever, that I was not aware of Lord Holland being 
the holder of the letters, until after the incident 
at Freemason's hall.) 



32 

The feelings of the Duke of Bedford were in 
perfect unison with those of Lord Holland, and 
of the Lord Chief Commissioner, respecting Mr. 
Foxs letters. The Lord Chief Commissioner, 
upon a journey with the Duke to the Lincoln 
Fens, sent a letter to me, the chief object of which 
was to convey the Duke's marked approbation of 
my conduct upon that occasion. The Duke him- 
self reiterated to me the same sentiment. These 
commendations, however, were not probitas lauda- 
tor et alget. A solid succour came, in a few days 
after I had committed the letters to the Lord Chief 
Commissioner, Galloping to have this pamphlet 
ready before the meeting of Parliament on the 
23d instant, (November 1 820) I have not time to 
look out for the means of ascertaining the pre- 
cise sum given towards the use of my pressures. 
From recollection, without written, data, I think 
it was about three thousand pounds. Though 
my embarrassments soon absorbed the sum, it 
rescued the Pcenates ; and warded off divers dan- 
gers that threatened those domestic divinities. 
It, however, was not merely understood, but ex- 
pressed in terms as unequivocal as if drawn by a 
special pleader, that for this aid to my wretched 
concerns (applied by the beneficent hands of the 
Lord Chief Commissioner) I was to owe no obli- 
gation to any mortal. Never were words more 
clear than those upon this point of the Lord 
Chief Commissioner. I therefore forestal any 
observation from Mr. Bennett, or from any other 
enemy, by repeating, and referring to, the dis- 
tinctly delivered authority of that most accurate 
and admirable of men, (Mr. Adam.) That I 
was considered as conferring a favour-— -not re- 
ceiving one. - 



33 

Oh ! Mr, Bennett, to what heart-breaking dis- 
closures do you not compel me ! 

English creditors, when just and legal, are ge- 
nerally reasonable and lenient. Usurers and 
fraudulent claimants, always oppressive, are the 
general fillers of prisons. From honest bonajide 
demandants, I protest before heaven that I have 
suffered more since Mr. Bennetfs assault upon me, 
on the 1 7th of the last month, than during my 
whole long anterior life of straits. Usury and 
law costs are the bane of the distrest. A blood 
sucker of this description deprived me of my 
liberty in 1813. What course I should pursue 
was a question of life or death. Whilst living at 
the London Coffee House (within the liberty of 
the Fleet) a child was born to me. This charge 
decided me to look up to heaven, instead of look- 
ing down at the grave. In 1 8 1 4 I took the bene- 
fit of an act ! ! In the next year (1815) my per- 
secutor sued me on pretence of having acquired 
new property. As matter of course, the usurer 
was entitled to a verdict. He suddenly seized 
my furniture, of which my just creditors never 
once thought of dispossessing me. Three of my 
creditors went security to the Sheriff. The She- 
riff turned out the usurer. The usurer brought 
an action against the sheriff. Upon the trial new 
property was proved, viz. the coals in the cellar, 
a carpet, some bottles of wine, a little crockery- 
ware, and the provisions in the larder. For 
these articles the Jury gave a verdict for £40. 
The usurers demand was near ^gl400. He 
again came into possession as for new property. 
The sheriff, always interested in all sales, no 
longer assisted me. The goods were advertised 
for sale, and a bill, in my absence, put upon my 

C 



34 

windows. Such, exactly, was my plight in April, 
1816; when a political adversary, but a personal 
well-wisher, saved me from being put into the 
street at the age of 61. — All the stored blessings 
of benignant heaven light for ever upon him and 
upon his. Yet, even in the extremity which I 
have described, perhaps I should not have had the 
courage to do what is termed * changing sides' 
only for an incident that happened in Paris, 
about six months before. 

The reader has seen that from the month of 
October, 1 806, to the dissolution of the govern- 
ment, on the 31st of March, 1807, I could not 
obtain even an answer to my suit from the Minis- 
terial survivors of Mr. Fox, My determination 
to follow Lord Grey was thwarted by some 
uncomfortable circumstances regarding the Ro- 
chester election. I wish to bury all topics of 
irritation in oblivion, and shall therefore only say, 
that, in place of seeing Lord Grey frequently at 
the Admiralty, as had been my wont, I felt it 
right, (whether mistakenly or otherwise,) not to 
trouble his Lordship with any call, forth from 
the month of November, 1806. Except in dis- 
charging my duties at the Pay Office, I really had 
no more to do with the Government, for some 
months previous to its termination, than with the 
government of China. 

In August, 1815, a passion seized me for seeing 
Buonapartes galleries at the Louvre. c To a man 
of my kidney,' chance itself presented not even a 
possibility of ever seeing, in their native regions, 
the wonderful works of art then centered in 
Paris — after their removal. But, to compass a 
jaunt even to Paris ! My old and excellent friend, 
Mr. Dwwki?is 7 the Member for Hastings, had, in 



35 

consequence of the recent death of his father, 
just succeeded to the rich inheritance of his 
honourable family. Though I was aware that 
he had, himself, been 6 biting upon the bridl%* 
for above a quarter of a century, and could not 
upon his accession, be free from heavy burthens, 
yet I knew his generous and truly noble heart. 
For the sum I asked (i?185) Mr. Dawkins in- 
stantly enclosed a draft to me upon Mr. Beeston 
Long. Leaving, as I had hoped, the Foces and Lares 
in Craven Street in probable safety, I reserved the 
sum which I had calculated as sufficient for my 
Paris excursion. After being a full month in 
that fine capital, I forgot that I had not seen 
Talma in Ducie's Hamlet. In return to a mes- 
sage by a common friend, that great actor sent 
me word that * he should certainly play the part.' 
Day passed after day, and week after week, but 
no Hamlet. I went, myself at length to Mr. 
Talma. I found that the delay was owing to 
Talma's endeavouring to obtain the Opera-house 
for the play, which he had resolved to get up 
for his own benefit. By means of a high noble- 
man at court, the Opera-house was granted ; but 
then the Duke of Wellington (who had gone a 
considerable distance to an Austrian review) was 
waited for. The play at last was represented ; 
but its repeated protractions put my exchequer 
out at the elbows. Musing, upon the Boulevards, 
as to the mode of supplying my reduced means, 
who, of the whole human race, did I meet, but 
the Duke of Bedford, with one of his sons, 
(Lord John Russell I believe) to whom his Grace 
introduced me. Parting, after the kindest greet- 
ings, I went home, persuaded that the Duke was 
c sent from heaven' to relieve me. I wrote a 



36 

short letter to his Grace, beginning with this 
quotation — Fnit homo missus a Deocuinomen erat 
Johannes. I stated the cause of my exhaustion 
— that a very little would answer my purpose ; 
but that I wished to purchase some literature and 
expensive music (not then in print) with a view 
to the English stage — not for my own luxury ; 
and that one hundred pounds would accomplish 
all my objects. The Duke sent to me a most 
kindly worded answer* but not a shilling of 
money. Poor General Mathew was not quite so well 
provided, by a few acres, as his Grace — yet the 
General, cheerfully lessening his little, effected all 
my wishes. 

The wronged, it is said, are never forgiven. 
Though I have the allegation only at third hand, 
yet are the progressive channels, through which 
that allegation has come to me, so unlikely to 
misreport any thing, that I fully credit the follow- 
ing — to wit, that, at a conversation between 
Lord John Russell, Mr. G. Bennett, &c, on the 
one side, and Lord Castlereagh with a couple of 
his Lordship's friends on the other side, in an 
anti-room at the House of Commons on the 17th 
ult. (the day of Mr. H. G. Bennett's attack upon 
me) Mr. Bennett, to me, (D. O'B.) was gentleness 
itself in comparison with the stouter, sterner, and 
more stentorophonic hostility of Lord John 
Russell — of the young nobleman who happened 
to be under the arm of his illustrious father, on 
the Boulevards of Paris, at the rencontre above 
alluded to, in October, 1815. 

Well ; do I designate the Duke of Bedford's 
refusal to assist me with the means of returning 

See Appendix, No. 7. 



37 

to London from Paris, at that time, as a wrong t 
Had not the Duke of Bedford a right to do as 
pleased him ? I should only say, in reply to such 
a position, that with him, ' wondrous him J that 
same Mr. Fox, in reverence for whose memory 
the noble father of Lord John Russell and I, (in 
my miniature,) are quite concordant,— with him 
it was more than a rule, it was an aphorism, that 
1 every right, pushed to extremity, became a 
wrong.' Had the Whig party been recalled to 
power, and reluctance been manifested to the 
performance, in my favour, of Mr. Foj?s demon- 
strable intentions, the Duke of Bedford would 
have been the very first man from whose inter- 
positioa I should have sought for Justice. 

I am one who pretend to never forgetting any 
favour. A sufferer from, and a suffering witness to, 
the almost perpetual ingratitude of base mankind, 
it is among the foremost of my prides to hope 
that I bear no similitude, in this relation, to the 
herd of my species. I owe obligations, the sense 
of which is indelible, to the Duke of Bedford for 
important kindness, in Dublin, to my ill-starred 
brother, now no more. The Duke of Bedford 
was, is, and ever shall be, an object of my respect 
and attachment. Yet, without entering further 
into any analyzation of his Grace's declining , in 
a foreign land, to enable me to return to my own, 
I have only to declare, that the lights flashed 
upon my understanding by that decliner, have 
more decided the political direction by which I 
shaped my course, in April, 1816, than could all 
my vexations, not only united, but augmented 
twenty fold — did the scope of man's misery admit 
of such augmentation. My opinion of that re- 
fusal by the Duke of Bedford, may be inferred 



38 



from this fact: — that, under a notion that the 
circumstance would not tell in favour of his Grace, 
I never mentioned it to any human being before 
this moment, — and, even now it is extorted from 
me, by the conduct, to me, of his Grace's son, 
Lord John Russell, and of his Grace's nephew, 
the Honourable H. G. Bennett* 

Now, then, behold the stigmatised c apostate 
of the said Mr. Bennett, 



* See in Appendix, No. 7, my Letter to his Grace, written 
a day or two after the refusal, &c. &c. 



39 



PART THE THIRD. 



From 1816 to the Present Day. 

It was my intention to insert, in this third 
division of my hurried pamphlet, all possible pas- 
sages from all that I had written since April, 
1816, wherein I had mentioned the Opposition, 
generally, or any individual of that body, in par- 
ticular. The task, however, is impracticable. Illness 
so retarded me, that not a single page of this 
work was written till Wednesday the 15th inst,, 
(November, 1 820.) I am now holding my pen 
late at night, on Tuesday the 21st of November. 
I must finish my job by to-morrow, or give it 
up entirely. The bare perusal of the articles 
alluded to is, in the interval, impossible. Still 
more impossible would be the making of extracts. 
My traducers shall, however, be enabled to satis- 
fy themselves of these two truths,— -first, that I 
never mentioned the Opposition, properly so 
called, otherwise than respectfully. Secondly, 
that I never talked of any individual, among the 
number, without courtesy ; and, (if the indivi- 
dual happened to be of Mr. Fox's personal 
friends,) without denotations of esteem and re- 
gard. Excepting a letter signed Videns, addressed 
to the Marquis of Lansdowne, (to which Noble- 
man I have other letters to address, upon subjects 
wholly apart from politics, and contemplating the 
benefit of my fellow creatures upon other points,) 



40 

excepting that letter, almost every article of my 
writing has been signed by some of the letters, 
or by an anagram of the letters, composing my 
Christian name, — and by no other. The flashy, 
factitious writing, signed Hambden, which Mr. 
Bennett has attributed to me, shews what a per- 
fect judge Mr. Bennett is of styles. By the 
flummery of the Morning Post to that writer, it 
would seem as if the Editor either knew, or 
thought him to be, a person of condition. Were 
Hambden of ducal dignity, I pronounce him, not 
the less, a being destitute of humanity and taste, 
— he who, in a letter to Mr. Bennett, published 
in the Morning Post, on the 26th ult. could not 
indulge his vituperations of Mr. Bennett^ without 
going out of his way to vilify me, — me who ne- 
ver could have offended the unknown, and who 
was confined to my bed at the time that writer 
displayed his malignity against me. 

But though the extracts from my essays are 
neither compatible with the expedition I aim at, 
nor with the growing bulk of this pamphlet, I 
have just this moment accidently laid my hand 
upon a second article regarding the 6 Dismissal of 
Lord FitzwiUiam, of the existence of which I 
was not myself aware till within a few minutes. 
The reader will find it in Appendix, No. 6. The 
essay is a fair sample of my mode of opposing 
my old friends ; and, perhaps, may lesson Mr. G. 
Bennett into less vivacity when pronouncing upon 
writings and writers. It is well known that the 
present government make it their glory to be the 
scholars of Mr. Pitt. In mentioning that great 
man, as I have, scores of times, mentioned him, 
(generally with Mr. Fox) in the last four years, 

im persuaded I never offended any liberal mem- 
ber of the present administration in uniformly 



41 

placing the name of Mr. Fox foremost. A traitor 
to one party cannot be either faithful or useful to 
another. If Mr. Bennett can trace in any thing real- 
ly written by me, * either lie or libel, dereliction of 
principle, or oblivion of friendship ;' he has my full 
consent to expose me at market crosses ; but oh ! 
Mr. Bennett, do not charge me with the acts of 
others. Had any violater of the law deposed that 
Mr. Fletcher had knocked at your door and been 
admitted, (which he, or any other man might be by 
one of your maids) how loud would be your com- 
plaint, how just your indignation at the inference 
of participation from such a premise. Instead of 
presuming innocence till guilt is proved, you rush 
to a conclusion of guilt, in defiance of all the prin- 
ciples of reason, logic, and law. But Mr. Ben- 
nett shall speak for himself. 

The following is copied by the undersigned from the 
Papers of October 18, 1820. 

Extract of the Hon. H. G. BENNETTS' S Speech. 

TIMES. 

" Men like O'Bryen, into whose house Mr. Franklin 
had been traced — apostates who, by acts of more than 
common infamy, were working out the crime of having 
once held better principles, and associated with better 
men. He believed that the two letters to Earl Fitz- 
william, which had appeared in the Morning Post, and 
for which he wished with all his heart a prosecution had 
been instituted ; he believed that those letters had been 
the production of that same man, O'Bryen. Such were 
the men who edited those infamous newspapers which 
daily insulted the good feeling of the country," &c. 

MORNING HERALD. 

No allusion to Mr. O'Bryen. 

MORNING CHRONICLE. 
u Franklin was traced, it appeared, into the house of 
Mfc Denis O'Bryen, whose intercourse with lome of the 

D 



42 

Ministers the Noble Lord would hardly venture to deny. 
Yet Franklin was the connection of this person, who had 
aggravated the turpitude of his apostacy by the foulest 
and most unprincipled attacks upon the character of those 
gentlemen with whom he was at former times permitted 
to enjoy some society, while he affected to concur with 
them in political opinion. Two scurrilous letters, which 
were some time since addressed to Lord Fitzwilliam in 
the Morning Post, and which he was sorry the Noble 
Lord had not prosecuted, he understood could fully be 
proved to be the production of this O'Bryen. Of such 
a man Franklin was a worthy colleague in this base con- 
federacy, the main object of which had for some time 
been to depreciate the character, to wound the feelings, 
to aggravate the sufferings of a woman, and that woman 
a Queen." (Hear ! hear ! hear !) 

BRITISH PRESS. 

" He was far from charging any of the Departments 
with these practices, but might they not have friends 
and agents, who might see reasons for believing that such 
things would be serviceable to their patrons ? Such 
men as this Franklin, and the other man, O'Bryen, into 
whose house the other had been tracked, might readily 
be brought to undertake such an office. Some of them 
might thus endeavour to clear themselves from the 
suspicions with which their apostacy from liberal prin- 
ciples might oppress them. He thought he could trace 
in the envenomed wickedness of the papers read by his 
honourable friend (Mr. Hume) the spirit which dictated 
those foul and abominable letters which had been ad- 
dressed to Lord Fitzwilliam in the Morning Post ; the 
writer of which he wished the Noble Earl had prosecuted 
at the time." 

MORNING POST. 

" Government profited by this species of alarm ; and, 
though the Heads of Departments were not, as the 
Noble Lord assured them, concerned in this black and 
nefarious practice, was it not probable that their under- 
lings, runners, and agents would promote that which 
was advantageous to their principals ? Might they not 



43 

expect that such men as this O'Bryen was described to 
be, might have, besides other inducements, the principles 
of apostacy to stimulate them to acts which would work 
out the shame of it ? Connected with newspapers, they 
would write those articles which were daily seen to issue 
from the press. He believed that the letters to Earl 
Fitzwilliam, which had appeared in the Morning Post, 
were so written by him (Mr, O'Bryen.) He thought 
this capable of proof." 

NEW TIMES. 

i( He had no doubt that there were persons of that 
stamp connected with the editors of newspapers, and one 
whose name he could not immediately recollect (O'Bryen 
he believed) had written the letters addressed to Earl 
Fitzwilliam, to which he had before alluded, inserted in 
the Morning Post. It was impossible without shuddering 
to read the infamous and wicked attempts that were made 
by persons of that description, joining a most foul 
conspiracy to run down a woman, and that woman the 
Queen of Great Britain. " 

The above has been copied by me from the different 
newspapers, and I answer for its literal exactness. 

I. C. MICHELL. 

18, Queen Square, Bloomsbury. 

Compared the above extracts with the original news- 
papers, which are correct as far as they go. 

Chancery Chambers. G. PE,RNO. 

Such, and upon such a foundation, is my treat- 
ment from a gentleman who calls himself a 
Foxite. 

Have I ever injured or offended Mr. Bennett I 
Never. Independent of my incapacity for personal 
disparagement of any body, I could not, in de- 
scanting upon Mr. Bennett, forget that he is the 
son of Lord Tankerville, and the brother of Lord 
Ossulston ; but it so happens that I never have 
once written down the name of Mr. Bennett, in all 
my life, except for this pamphlet. The reader 



44 

will therefore judge for himself, whether a more 
gratuitous attack was ever made upon any human 
being than Mr. Bennett's upon me ! and whether 
any human being ever less deserved it. 

I think that I now might leave Mr. Bennett to 
the settlement of this account with his conscience. 
It may however help to tranquillize that consci- 
ence, to be in possession, as now it shall be, of 

The Effects of Mr. Bennett's Attack upon 
Mr. O'Bryen. 

All the world reads the Parliamentary debates. 
There is not a channel of publication in the coun- 
try which has not diffused the attack of Mr. 
Bennett. So confined has been the circulation of 
the few lines which that attack has drawn from 
me, that I doubt not Mr. Bennett has had fifty 
thousand readers for my one reader. My appeal 
to the liberality and to the liberty of the Press, 
was nearly barren. Beyond the few papers men- 
tionedin AppendixNo. 2, p. ix,I could not obtain the 
least insertion. That the whole Press was entirely 
Bennettised is not my conclusion. The newspaper 
Gentlemen are better informed upon newspaper 
subjects than Mr. Bennett is. The newspaper article 
copied in Appendix No. 3, p. xv, I take to have 
been the true solution of the general Press being 
impervious to me. That article was well known 
to be mine. Its closing passage is not calculated 
for cultivating newspaper favour. It is, however, 
full as much so as its author intended. 

Never sure, was any community so newspaper 
ridden as is the English. Never was that truth 
more clearly evinced than by the results upon 
my concerns of Mr. Bennett's attack. There was 
scarcely any person with a colourable claim of 
debt, that did not fall upon me. The resurrec- 
tion of the dead could scarcely be more surprising 



45 



to me than are some of those demands. Harassed, 
insulted, persecuted, every hour of every day 
since the 17th of the last month, the accumulated 
troubles brought upon me by Mr. Bennett would 
be sufficient to bear down both my mind and 
body, were both in plenitude of vigour and 
health. That I still breathe, under my present 
infirmities, is amazing to myself. The instance 
which I shall now relate is a perfect picture of 
my general predicament. Oh ! Mr. Bennett I 
What developments you have imposed upon me ! ! 

To Messrs. Cappers, coal merchants of Beau- 
fort Buildings, I owed a Judgment debt of be- 
tween three and four hundred pounds, and a book 
debt for coals. In gradual payments I reduced the 
Judgment debt to j?174. Though in 1814 I 
was freed from this claim, a point of honour in- 
duced me to reassume a legal responsibility for 
the money. The attorneys in the cause are 
Messrs. F aimer and France, of Bedford Row ; 
persons of excellent character, as, indeed, their 
clients are. The demand has been due many 
years, but the goodness of F aimer and France 
preserved me from all molestation. Both clients 
and attorneys became suddenly Bennettised. Mr. 
F aimer is annually chosen under Sheriff for Sussex; 
which function brings him into frequent con- 
tact with the Lord Lieutenant, the Earl of Egre- 
mont. F aimer and France are also his Lordship's 
London solicitors. / know that Messrs. Palmer 
and France read the newspaper article publish- 
ed last year, (see Appendix No. 2, p. xii.) in 
which I illustrated the Lords Fitzwilliam and 
Egremont by their congenial virtues. That arti- 
cle, so unexpectedly revived the other day, was 
not likely to displease any connection of Lord 
Egremont 9 s — but Bennettism bore the ascendant. 



46 

In a few days after Mr. Bennett's attack upon me, 
these otherwise the most lenient attorneys I ever 
met with, suddenly sent an execution into my 
house for the i>l74; and arrested me for the 
book debt of Messrs. Capper (^BSO.) for which 
these latter had never even furnished me with 
a bill. The sheriff's officer, thinking he saw 
death in my countenance, said — • Whatever hap- 
pens, Sir, I shan't take you away/ ' Even butch- 
ers weep.' The man in possession has cruelly 
teized and pillaged me. I implored a respite from 
his vexations only until after the 23d — stating, 
that my undisturbed mind was never so essential 
to me as this week. He has tortured me more 
in the last four days than in the whole antecedent 
four weeks. 

But these are trifles compared with other effects 
of Mr. Bennett 9 s kindness to me. 

It has been my comfort through life, that I 
had laid the fastest hold of those who knew me 
best. Mr. Fox knew me. Mr. Burke* knew me. 

* I made the fortune of Doctor Lawrence — unknown to the 
Doctor. That Prince of prose writers, Mr. Burke, informed 
me in a beautiful letter from Beaconsneld, that he selected me, 
of all mankind to assist himself and the other Managers for 
the Commons in the arrangement of the papers necessary to 
the Impeachment against Mr. Hastings. I declined the proffer 
by the same post j giving as a reason that I had not industry 
•ufficient for the undertaking. Mr. Burke wrote back to me 
that * he would not allow me to commit such a suicide.' He 
detailed to me the benefits and honours to which my acceptance 
of his proposition could not fail to lead— gave me three days 
to pause ; and fixed a meeting with me at the end of the three 
days, at Mr. Adey the Banker's. I wrote by return of post 
a decisive decliner ; which irked Mr. Burke greatly. Mr 
Sheridan recommended Mr. Lawrence — at that time unknown 
to every member of the Whig party, except Mr. Sheridan him- 
self. No man ever better deserved his elevation than Mr. 
(afterwards Doctor) Lawrence — but he indubitably owed his 
advancement to my — indolence. 



47 

Poor Sheridan knew me. The Lord Chief Com- 
missioner knows me. I was in hopes that by de- 
grees Lord Liverpool and Mr. Canning would 
know me — (Lord Liverpool, with whom I had 
the honour of something like a salutation acquaint- 
ance nearly since his Lordship's entrance upon 
public life — Mr. Canning, whom I had known 
from a stripling long before he left Eton) and 
my faith is absolute that I should accomplish an 
exchange of my mockery of an office at the 
Cape for something efficient — but for the light 
in which I had been exhibited to the world by 
the son of Mr. Fox's near neighbour and friend, 
the Earl of Tankerville — such exhibitor being 
also the nephew of the Duke of Bedford. I have 
not seen a single person connected with the go- 
vernment since Mr. Bennett's attack upon me. 
My plight, in respect to the only two Ministers 
whom I looked to, will be gathered from the 
following fact. 

Mr. Canning has a private secretary worthy 
of such a Principal. Than the gentleman in 
question, (Mr. Backhouse) this island contains 
not a man of better sense or manners. I lately 
sent one letter, and only one, to Mr. Backhouse—- 
that gentleman of not surpassed manners and 
good sense — returned my letter by my messen- 
ger— unopened ! 

From the few friends of which Mr. Bennett 
has not deprived me, I learn, that I have not read 
a tenth part of the libels published against me ; and 
I understand that Lord Castlereagh is constantly 
bemired in conjunction with my name. His Lord- 
ship, however, has comparitive youth, health, 
wealth, power. In all these relations I am the Noble 
Lord's exact antipode. He despises libellers, /owe 



48 

a duty to that liberty of the press which I have 
long used without once abusing, and shall assu- 
redly make twelve Englishmen, upon their oaths, 
decide between my traducers and myself — being 
quite certain that they are the most fatal ene- 
mies to that most valuable of all rights, who 
give a practical impunity to libellers. To Lord 
Castlereagh I never opened my lips, nor ever 
wrote one line, except upon the concerns of the 
Irish Charity — to which institution the Noble 
Lord is a most bountiful benefactor ; and with 
regard to Lord Sidmouth, — I never exchanged a 
syllable or a line with his Lordship, — in my 
whole life. 

A Benettised mob rushed before my house upon 
the illuminations ; but, perceiving that I out 
blazed all my neighbours, the sage gentlemen con- 
tented themselves with a few Bennetiisms — in 
piano cadence. The escape, however, of the 
windows, of the house, and of the house-keeper, 
was not attributable to Mr. Bennett. When I first 
heard of the charge, on which Mr. Bennett has so 
much improved, I literally published myself. Un- 
til sickness struck me down, I got daily on horse- 
back. I rode to Bow Street. I went to public 
amusements. I stood at my windows contrary to 
my custom. I kept the windows unshuttered till 
ten each night. By these means I saved wretches 
from perjury,* and myself from persecution. 

* Since the above was printed, a Bill of Indictment for 
conspiracy with Mr. Fletcher has been found against me. 
On the back of the Bill are thirteen names, to me entirely 
unknown, except the two first — viz. Mr. Joseph Hume, M. P. 
(ivith whom J never exchanged one word,) and Mr. Charles 
Pearson (whose face I never beheld until, on the 10th of 
October last, he accompanied Viccary in search of Mr. 



49 

To the law I look for redress upon my non-par- 
liamentary enemies ; but no law can touch upon 
a Member's privilege of speech. And, oh God 7 
what an use of a glorious public right to employ 
it for private wrong and ruin ! 

Fletcher, under the name of Franklin — a name unknown in 
my house. These 13 names are, besides Messrs. Hume 
and Pearson, as follows ; — Arthur Seale, — Joseph Martin,— 
Ann Jones, — Martha Shear,— Win, Turner, — James Brown, 
— William Harris, — Andrew Shear, — Richard Wild,— John 
Jones, and John Hockley. 

Of the existence of these persons I was unaware till this 
incident occurred. 1 am not conscious of having ever seen 
any one of them. I hope good men will assist me in this 
conflict with bad men. Pendente lite, I can only leave it 
to discerning men to draw their own inferences from the 
fact of a bill being found upon the ex parte swearing of 13 
persons, totally unknown to the defendant. 

This Bill was found on Monday last, the 27th of Novem- 
ber 1820, at 5 o'clock in the evening. Before 9 o'clock at 
night I had returned home, together with my two neighbours, 
who bailed the action, All, (beside the above) that has been 
newspapered upon this occasion, is the usual misrepresenta- 
tion of every concern of mine. 

Previous to the Term, just expired, my adversaries well 
knew that I retained Messrs. Scarlett, Gumey, and Bolland. 
Until the third week of Term, illness totally disabled me 
from all legal preparation towards legal redress of my count- 
leis wrongs. Since I have been so far recovered as to hold a 
peu, this pamphlet has so entirely engrossed me that the 
whole Term has been unavoidably lost to me. Though the 
pace of Justice be slow, its steps are steady. I studiously 
avoid the course pursued by my enemies, that of constantly 
striving to influence the course of law by an illicit use of the 
press. 

If the rest of mankind combined to set up a fourth 
Estate in this Constitution, 1 shall be no party to such 
an usurpation. I distinctly refuse to plead to any other 
jurisdiction than the legal tribunals of my country. Those 
tribunals I shall neither offend by obstruction, nor outrage by 
premature contraband publication — even though I am the 
victim of lies and Wbels— unparalleled. 

December 2d, 1820. 

E 



50 

Here I take leave to say, that I believe I have 
mot one political enemy, out of the pale of Radi- 
calism, who has not been procured by devotion to 
Mr. Fox, or some other virtue on my part. If the 
King himself is indisposed towards me, I fear I 
could not make even His Majesty an exception. I 
never did any thing that should attract His Majes- 
ty's lightest censure. He never expressed or con- 
veyed any wish to me which had not been instant- 
ly and reverently obeyed. An incident occurred 
between seventeen and eighteen years since which 
I fear had made an impression to my disadvantage 
when it ought to have produced a contrary result. 
The incident was very extraordinary ; and my 
understanding instructs me that this is a fit occa- 
sion to refer to it. 

About nine o'clock at night, in the Addington 
administration, the late Sir John M^Mahpn 
called upon me. '■ I come, at this strange hour, 
by order of the Prince. His Royal Highness has 
been told that a meeting has taken place between 
Mr. Fox and Mr. Pitt He has chosen you as an 
intelligencer, certain that you are the likeliest to 
know the fact and to tell the truth.' ' The truth 
then is, my dear M'Mahon, that I know 
nothing of the matter ; but I will enquire ; and 
faithfully report to his Royal Highness.' I went 
directly to Mr. Fox, then at the hotel in Berkely 
Square, and after the departure of Lord Fitzwih 
lianiy who came in at my heels and stopped an 
hour, was instructed in these words. * You must 
write to Carlton House and say that the Prince 
has been misinformed.* I did so, without loss of 
time. 

If that answer— the only one which good 
faith to Mr. Pitt admitted, has hurt me in the 



51 

present King's opinion, never was greater injus- 
tice ; for I was not, myself, undeceived till the 
24th day of January, 1806— the day after Mr. 
Pitts death — as before stated. 

I now have done. 

Mr. Bennet, without offence or injury from 
me, has proved himself my deadliest enemy. It 
is in his power to repair it in some degree, to- 
morrow — at the meeting of the House of Com- 
mons. 

I recollect that Mr. Bennett came over one day 
from Walton to St. Ann's Hill, accompanied by 
Lord Er shine. Having avoided all intemperance 
throughout this pamphlet, I will finish it with 
quoting, for Mr. Bennett's guidance, the most 
beautiful sentence that ever fell from the lips of 
that eloquent Peer. Speaking of Lord Mansfield^ 
in the Court of King's Bench about 20 years 
since, Lord Erskine said, * Boundless as my admi- 
ration always was of that illustrious judge, I never 
surveyed him with so much reverence, as when 
I have seen him, upon that bench — sitting in judg- 
ment upon his own imperfections/ If Mr. Ben- 
nett regards his universal error respecting me as 
an imperfection — I trust, the example of Lord 
Mansfield will not be lost upon him. 

DENIS O'BRYEN. 
21, Craven* Street, 
November the 22nd, 1 820. 

P. S. Though 1 trust that this pamphlet contains a suf- 
ficiency for my obvious purpose, I assure the reader that I 
have not put forth HALF MY STRENGTH. 



APPENDIX.— No. 1 



(Copy.) 

The late Right Honourable William Windham to Mr, O'Bryen. 

' October gth, 1806. 
' Dear Sir, 

4 When I tell you that I received your letter at Norwich, 
and that I am now in my third journey since that time, you will 
not wonder, that I should have been obliged to delay my 
answer longer than I could wish. As so much of your letter 
related to an election, I may say that to answer it in my circum- 
stances, was something like what Congreve describes, « writing 
of a storm in a storm.' My answer in the first instance must 
have all the uncertainty that belongs to a total ignorance on my 
part of the nature of the object, and of the fact of its being 
at my disposal ; but you will feel moreover that upon the 
same principle on which our departed friend was so anxious to 
serve you, there must be many, whose wishes, and perhaps 
wants, I must feel myself not inclined merely, but bound to 
attend to ; and the opportunities which I have had or am likely 
to have for that purpose, are not such as will admit my passing 
over any that may for some time come into my power. 

1 No one will be more ready to feel the force of this principle 
than yourself, and you will as easily conceive that the operation 
of it may not be consistent with my indulging in this instance, 
either my wishes towards you personally, or the respect I 
should feel for the wishes of our late friend. 

' It may not, however, be very necessary, at the present 
moment, to adjust nicely the proportion of the considerations 
that might weigh on one side or the other, the fact first to be 
ascertained will be, whether the place, whatever may be its 
value, is at my disposal, and whether it be compatible with the 
one which you at present have, and which Lord Howick was 
willing to hope was far from an unprofitable one. I can only 
say in the mean time, that it will not be from want of good 
wishes personally to yourself, or of a sense of those sentiments, 
which you have seemed at different times to manifest towards 
me, if in the present, or in any other instance, I should forbear 
opportunities, where it might seem to be in my power to be of 
service to you. 

' I am, dear Sir, 
' Your very obedient and faithful humble servant, 

• W. WINDHAM/ 
a 



LI 



No. 2. 

(Copt.) 

Mr. O'Bryen to the Right Honourable William Windham. 

'> Craven Street, October, llM, 180(5. 
'Dear Sir, 

' I return to you my thanks for the honour and the favour of 
your letter, dated the 9th instant, which has just been delivered 
here. I persuade myself that there is a sentiment of good 
will towards me, pervading every part of the letter 5 and that 
persuasion both soothes and flatters me. No doubt you have 
abundance of clients for the widest range of your possible 
patronage. Even if I had, what I do not in the least pretend 
to, a right of importuning you, your conversation never coped 
with one less likely to push it, than your present correspondent. 
Indeed, I am the victim of quite a contrary turn of mind. 
The object of my application was suggested to me by a kind- 
hearted stranger. In whose gift it lay I knew not j but took 
the liberty of thinking that whoever had the disposal of it 
might not deem it nnadvisable to oblige me, either in arelation 
purely personal, or generally, in relation to the Government 
as it stands. That the incumbency of serving me might lie 
more in other quarters, I am not disposed to contest 3 but this 
admission does not exclude, as I humbly conceive, the possible 
co-existence of claims on my part, of duties to me from, 
the surviving members of the administration. When Mr. Fox 
characterized me as a man with whom ' he could permit no 
competition on the score of merits, as one, in favour of whose 
merits he could sign a charte blanche, the merits to which he 
alluded were public and political. Personal affection he might 
have had from me, perhaps in as great a proportion as one 
breast ever felt for, or imparted to, another ; but it most 
clearly was to my exertions in favour of the party I was con- 
nected with that he, chiefly, adverted, when he thus described 
me. Are those exertions matters of privacy ? 

r May I, my dear Sir (the question not implying any dissent 
from the general reasonings or distinctions of your letter, and the 
question being put to you, only, plurally, as a member of the 
Cabinet) may I, then, with all becoming submission, ask,whether 
my services are so entirely a secret, my utilities so exclusively 
confined to one person, that the tomb which contains his ashes 
is the proper boundary of my hopes ? 

* There are many peculiarities in my misfortune, and not one 
of the least is, that unless I speak of myself I fear I shall 
want a historian. Against my will, and against the rules of 



Ill 



taite, then, am I compelled to a certain portion of egotism, 
which I feel quite sure you will think the situation I am in 
abundantly excuses. 

' Will it sound extravagant, when I venture to telFyou, that 
I pretend to nothing less than this, that I have done more to 
serve the persons constituting the present cabinet— that I have 
done more to produce a general conviction that the public 
salvation depended upon their being put at the head of the 
government, then all the persons provided for, by all the 
ministers, since the period of their kissing hands ! ! Than 

ALL J ALL PUT TOGETHER- 

6 You are a man of a benevolent mind, and the whole world 
knows you to be amongst the ablest of mankind. Never did 
you perform an act of greater charity, than it will be to con- 
vince me that I am in a delusion up^n this point. 

' The 24 years' labour that preceded the junction of Mr. Fox 
and of Lord Grenville shall go for nothing. The beginning of 
that interval was marked by a circumstance which your memory 
will retrace, viz. that a work of mine had been attributed to 
you, as it had also been to Mr. Fox, (' Garth did not write his 
own dispensary') a work which was the occasion to me of the 
additional honour of my having declined the offer of a provision 
(in youth and in want) from the very ministers I opposed. From 
the death of Lord Rockingham to the sessions of parliament in 

1804, when Mr. Pitt returned to power, all this period, in every 
year of which I did more than half a dozen of the most active 
of my fellow labourers, shall go as a perfect blank in this 
discussion. In reference to a part of the present ministers, it 
should be such. I shall therefore speak only of those events 
which contributed to make those ministers what they now are. 

' The first epoch was the trial of strength, upon Mr. Pitt's 
Parish bill. I believe it may happen, that you know more than 
I do, how /was selected as the most dextrous promulger of that 
letter to Mr. Pitt, which reflected so much honour upon the 
wisdom of Lord Grenville. It was thought at the time, to 
have had great effect in the debate and the division ; having 
been published on the same day. The tenth report became the 
next topic of popular interest. How that business was handled, 
though at that time you did not come much to Budd's, you I 
believe are not ignorant. On the night of the Qth of April, 

1805, the night after the vote against Lord Melville, Mr. Fox 
going to St. Ann's Hill the next day for the recess, said to me 
— ' O'B pray stir the country if you can. We could work with 
double effect, within doors, if we are well supported without.* 

' Whilst you were all in the midst of your rural enjoyment! 
during the rece3s, I was at the anvil ; and so effectually did I 

a 2 



IV 



' stir the country' that I will venture to say the uniformity of the 
sensation never was equalled. Of my toil you will form some 
guess, when you learn that excepting the address to the king 
from Westminster, which was written by Mr. Fox; the 
Middlesex resolutions which were written by Mr. Creevy ; 
a part of one resolution which was worded in a note to me, 
by the Duke of Northumberland, every line of every resolu- 
tion, petition to the House of Commons, and address to the 
King, (though all sufficiently varied not to betray their com- 
mon origin) from the City of London, from Westminster, 
from Middlesex, and from the borough of Southwaik, were 
all written by me. I must add to the exceptions two resolutions 
at the borough meeting, which were foisted in, foolishly and 
fraudulently, (by an intrigue of Major Cartwright's with Mr. 
Shipley of the borough) respecting parliamentary reform. 

' The country caught the example of the capital j and the 
expense of all these operations, which was guessed by many 
of our friends to exceed three thousand pounds, did not exceed 
300/. 

' I had not recovered the effects of these labours, when a 
new incident, the third coalition, demanded a renewal of efforts. 

' With the train of thinking which I ventured to entertain 
upon that subject, it happens, that the repeated calls, with 
which your condescension honoured my humble roof, about 
this time twelvemonth, make you well acquainted. That I 
was right you well know : that I effectually strove to make the 
nation right, is no less true. In this work I had two able 
co-operators ; Mr. Cobbett and Mr. S of the Morning 

Chronicle. It is not to lessen their great merits, but merely to 
state a fact that I remark that both of these gentlemen were la- 
bouring in their vocation ; each being at the head of a produc- 
tive property, and each being professional gainers by what they 
wrote : whilst I, who had, at no period of my life, any interest 
or concern in any such publications, did all, for the benefit of 
the present ministers, and of him who is no more. So com- 
pletely was^the task accomplished, that by the time parliament 
met there existed but one opinion, out of the pale of the 
ministry, namely, that all was lost unless the opposition was 
called in. I am sure I need not remind you that in producing 
this conviction in the public mind, the present ministers had 
no more immediate agency, than so many of the Emperor of 
China's Mandarins. It is not that the present ministers would 
not have done the thing with transcendent powers ; but, parlia- 
ment not sitting, the opportunity did not exist. The business 
was done to their hands. Mr. Pitt's death intervened j and 
prevented any parliamentary struggle. 



* If I am correct in this statement (and if I am incorrect, 
taking the word in its widest sense, in any thing, my own 
sentence upon myself is, that every thing I urge may go for 
nothing) it is with confidence I leave you to judge whether the — 

Sic vos, no?i vobiSy fertis aratra loves 
has ever had a more signal illustration than in my person j with 
this difference in favour of the quadruped, that he has ' right 
store of provender assigned him,' whilst I, the biped ox, in 
case this appeal, which has nothing but its truth and justice to 
recommend it, should fail, am likely to be in nearly the circum- 
stances of the luckless wight who had nothing to soothe him in 
his disappointments but to 

' Content himself with ends of verses 
* And sayings of philosophers !' 

' Sometimes it is unaccountable to me, that upon the mere 
score of interest, I should not be a little more in the thoughts 
of those whom I have served. 

' Fifty-one, to be sure, would be * too late a week' to begin 
the world anew — a sad time to set out in search of friends and 
fortune j yet this, my age, is not a period at which the powers 
of either mind or body usually forsake men j and if it should 
happen, as I, without the slightest fear of contradiction, con- 
tend to be the fact, that I rendered more service to the present 
ministry, during their political adversity, than all those upon 
whom their favor has shone, since their sun has been in the 
meridian, the singularity of my destiny will not be disputed. 
I am aware of the intoxicating effect of human power upon 
human frailty — that success is apt to forget that ill times ever 
existed or may come again — that c benefits conferred' do not 
always ensure a remembrance of the benefactor. Though I 
am well instructed in the truth of these positions, and know 
that they are older than Agamemnon j yet they are only 
general positions, — having, like other generalities, their limita- 
tions and exceptions. — And if I were to pick out of the mass 
of the world certain individuals whose conduct I should assure 
myself would be a contradiction to these rules, so unflattering 
to our common nature, those individuals would, undoubtedly, 
be found in the present ministry. The present ministry have 
refused no request of mine. During the life of Mr. Fox it 
would not have squared with my notion of fitness to say any 
thing of my situation to any of his colleagues. Even to him; 
since the 2^th of February last, the sum of my application 
respecting my pretensions, consists in one note of a few lines.— 
The letter from me to Lord Ho wick, respecting the cause of 
this correspondence, which his Lordship was so good as to convey 
to you, is the first and last request which I have made to the 



VI 

present ministers. I am not complaining of either the living or 
the dead j nor shall any lot that may befal me, nor any provo- 
cation from any quarter, ever tempt me to do other than exalt, 
as far as I can, the name and the fame of him whom, of the 
whole male creation, I loved next to heaven. As your obliging 
answer to my letter afforded me the opportunity of making 
some statement of my case, my discretion suggests to me that 
I ought not to omit it. But you would misunderstand me 
greatly, if you thought that this letter is levelled exclusively at 
you ; or mat I am capable of being an encroacher upon your 
capacities to serve me, the exertion of those capacities being 
accompanied with the slightest reluctance. Such a course on 
my part, would, I hope, be unnecessary j and, indeed, I have 
no doubt it would be so, both from what I know and what I 
have heard. 

' What I have heard is this. That Lord Lauderdale, some 
months since, stated to Lord Grenville mat Mr. Fox's mind 
was uneasy on account of my situation ; and that Lord Gren- 
ville was so good as to reply, that the thing should be attended 
to as soon as possible. What I know is, that when Lord 
Howick gave me the office at the Cape, his Lordship added— 
' Lord Grenville has, at present, nothing to offer you j when 
he has you will have it.' — The inference which I draw from 
both" these circumstances, rescues me from being, what, with- 
out these circumstances, I hope I should not be, an unrea- 
sonable or irksome supplicant, in any quarter. 

' This is the place proper for me to say a few words respecting 
the Marshalship of the Vice Admiralty Court at the Cape, in 
reply to your remark upon that office.* 

' Lord Howick knows, full well, that I feel his kindness as I 
ought ; and wants no additional proof of my attachment 
and respect for him. It is not to lessen the merit of the noble 
donor, that, I observe that even his Lordship's good will cannot 
make the office better than its nature admits. The true character 
of this office is this — The bad of it, is certain, the good, at 
best, but contingent. — In peace it is nothing. — In war, it is 
doubtful. What it is in war, may not, here, be possible to 
ascertain 5 but not so the negative. What it is not, I have col- 
lected with a non-consoling accuracy. 

' There is a sister but superior office in the same court, that 
of Registrar, the produce of which, by the kindness of the gen- 
tleman who held it, all the time the Cape was in our hands, I have 
been able to make out j and have, confidentially, imparted to 

• See my answer to the Committee on Sinecures, re- 
specting this my office, in Appendix No. 5, page xx. 



vu 



Lord Howick. From this datum, the result is, that, if the 
office of Marshal, inferior, in every way, to the Registrar, were 
equal to the latter in emolument, my prospect is quite desperate 
of getting rid of the burthens that are upon me, even without 
applying one shilling of its income to the purposes of subsist- 
ence, though the present war should last as long as the 
Peloponnesian. 

'.Now, as to these burthens ; the grand source of all my soli- 
citude. 

■ 1 am perhaps, the most signal, perhaps the only instance, of 
a man struggling through a life of difficulties, growing with 
the growth of every day, who, without Parliamentary protec- 
tion, has preserved his freedom, and never lost his little foot- 
ing.- — The art by which I have achieved this wonder, to me, 
has always been easy.— It consisted in this : in never deviating 
from the truth 5 and in putting it out of any man's power to say 
I deceived him. Never were creditors more kind than mine 
to me : — never was debtor more candid than I to them. At 
three epochs in the last eight years have the general body of 
my creditors granted to me three suspensions of all claims. 
The two last meetings, in 1801 and 1804, were attended by 
the present Attorney General in my behalf, ' as he's used, 
without a fee/ Though that learned and excellent person's 
kindness to me required no spur, he had the written request 
and authority of Mr. Fox, to state from him, to my creditors, 
his wish and his hope upon the occasion. The Attorney Gene- 
ral gave them no expectation, except in the event of a change 
of ministry. — The change has taken place 3 and the change 
having taken place, I own, with tremor, that my mind, though 
fertile of honest expedients in a condition of fortune from 
which your happier stars have always kept you in ignorance, 
suggests to me no safety, upon having nothing else to say to 
my generous creditors at the expiration of the third license, 
(now within a few months,) but to relate to them the Status 
quo of my present fortune. 

' I have now finished my letter. 

' I am well aware of the value of your time, and the time of 
those into whose hands a sentiment of kindness to me might 
prompt you to put these sheets for perusal. I feel all the incon- 
venience of the length into which I have been compelled to 
go j yet, without danger to the representation which I think 
it right to give of my situation, I know not where I could 
indulge myself with any abridgment ; and, as the diffusion ap- 
pears to me a matter of necessity, I take the liberty of relying 
upon that good natured consideration of which I have seen so 
many marks in your conduct and character, that you will 
excuse what I think unavoidable. 



Vlll 



' All that remains for me is to say, that the absence of a just 
sensibility to attention from any quarter shall never be found 
among the defects of him who has the honor of truly sub- 
scribing himself, 

' Dear Sir, 
• Your ever most faithful Servant, 

< D. O'Bryen/ 
* Postcript, October 15. 

' The above letter has been written these four days. As my 
hand-writing is not the most legible, 1 thought it might a 
little reconcile its great length to have the letter copied in a 
tempting character j and, as from its nature I could not em- 
ploy a stranger, I was obliged to wait till this day before I met 
with our late clerk at Budd's, whom I know I can trust.' 

No. 3. 

(Copy.) 

Mr. O'Bryen to the Right Honourable W. Windham. 

1 Craven Street, March the I0th,1801i 
'Dear Sir, 

' The manner almost as much as even the matter, of the few 
words that dropped from you this evening occasions to you the 
unwillingly given trouble of this letter. 

■ It is in the very genius of hope that it will often exist in 
spite of reason j but in my case, reason is the base and sole 
foundation of my hope. Whatever be the witcheries of that 
seducing emotion, how is it possible that I should fail to cherish 
not merely hope, but well-considered, rational expectation ? 

* May I take the liberty of re-stating to you the grounds on 
which my mind has reposed itself. 

' ] st. The words of Lord Howick to me j ' Lord Grenville 
has, at present, nothing to give you j when he has you will 
have it.' 

' If these plain words wanted illustration, the time of their 
delivery is better than a thousand expositors. They were spo- 
ken on the twelfth day of last August, the very day after his 
Lordship nominated me to the office at the Cape, and when I 
was in the very act of returning thanks for it. 

' 2dly. The answer of Lord Grenville to Lord Lauderdale's 
application $ viz. ' That Mr. Fox's mind should be freed from 
uneasiness on the score of Mr. O'Bryen, as soon as possible.' 

1 3dly. That my letter to you of last October, containing a 
statement of my pretensions, founded in part upon their intrin- 
sic justice, and in part upon the two circumstances above re- 



IX 

ferred to, should remain unanswered to this moment ; — and, 
that the only time I came in contact with you (before this day) 
your only words were, * I know that I am in arrear with you ; 
but I hope I shan't be so long.* 

' Now, my dear^Sir, how, under these circumstances, I should 
other than live in hope, I am persuaded you will admit to be 
inevitable. 

'There is a fidelity due to the confidential impartments of even 
the bad ; but faith to the good, especially to those of the good 
whose kind interest in one's welfare additionally enforces moral 
obligation, this duty is so obvious that the vulgarest mind could 
hardly miss it. If, however, there exist any relative delicacies 
which render a free communication to me, hy letter, a matter 
of irksomeness to you, the difficulty is easily removed, as I 
am, of course, ready, at any moment, to attend your commands 
in person, 

* The circumstances can witness for me that, however anxious 
I have been to hear from you during the five months that have 
intervened since my reply to your letter of the gth of last 
October, I have not allowed my solicitude to interfere with 
your convenience. 

c I have the honour to remain, 
< Dear Sir, 

• Your very faithful obedient Servant, 
■ D. O'Bryen.' 



APPENDIX— No. 2. 

The three documents contained in this Appendix comprehend 
the whole of what I have written, since the libellous ac- 
count in the Times and Chronicle, of the 10th of October, 
(1820,) and the courteous commentary of Mr. Bennett on 
the 17th of the same month. 
I. 
' To the EDITOR of the MORNING CHRONICLE. 

* Sir, 

'.Commencing with the close of my short letter in this day's 
Morning Post, which letter I had contemplated for your Paper 
and for the Times, as the channels nearly concurring in the offen- 
sive terms to me of the Bow-street intelligence of Monday last, 
I repeat, from that communication, that — 

" I must, in candour, premise, that from the insertion of this 
paper, compromise is neither to be inferred nor implied, against 
my seeking redress for the outrage upon me, at law — whilst yet 
law sustains itself, in this country, in opposition to the united ma- 
chinations of incendiaries and cut-throat6." 



e I now proceed, with all possible brevity, to correct the false- 
hoods contained in the said account. 

'■ 1st. It is false, that I held or hold a sinecure place under the 
present Government. The only office which I possess is a colo- 
nial appointment conferred upon me more than fourteen years 
since by Lord Grey (when his Lordship was first Lord of the Ad- 
miralty) at the instance of Mr. Fox. 

4 2d. It is false, that I am a writer for a certain Morning Paper. 
Were I such, I should not offer apology or explanation for such 
a disposition of myself. The fact, however, is, that, although 
in the course of my life, an occasional correspondent, like thou- 
sands of others, of several Papers- (the Chronicle and Times in- 
cluded) I never had either property, management, engagement, 
employment, or concern in any Newspaper, since the hour of 
my birth. 

' 3d. It is false, that distinguished characters, connected with 
the Ministerial Press are in habits of meeting at my house. Upon 
the most accurate retrospect of which my memory is capable, I 
do not recollect any gentleman, now connected with any possible 
Paper, to have been inside my threshold for the last twelve 
months. Such an incident may have occurred, as there are gen- 
tlemen in that line of avocation whom I know and highly es- 
teem j but I have not the slightest remembrance of such a visitor, 
for a full year past. 

' 4th. That Pearson and Vicltery were refused admittance by 
the servant happens to be fact, though found in the said state- 
ment } but the complexion given to that refusal is as false as the 
three first heads. The truth is, that I am very much annoyed 
by applicants, in real or pretended want j and that I have, dur- 
ing my 42 years' residence in this street, been obliged, perhaps 
42 scores of times, to threaten my servants with dismissal for 
receiving begging letters and admitting strangers. It is to the 
discipline thence arising, coupled with seeking for a name un- 
known to those servants as a male visitant, that they refused to 
open the door. The instant that I, who was getting out of bed, 
learnt the name and object of Vickery, eveiy part of the house 
was directly submitted to his search. I shall not add another 
word. < DENIS O'BRYEN/ 

21, Craven-street, October the l lth, 1820. 



2. 
TO THE EDITOR OF 



1 21, Craven- Street, Oct. 18, 1820. 
' Sib,— If I were at this moment in fulness of health, a cor- 
rection of the monstrous misrepresentations regarding me which 



XI 

took place last night, in more than one quarter, would be no 
slight call upon my exertions. How much more serious is my 
task in my present circumstances ! Whether a more cruel 
hardship can be inflicted, than to make one man answerable 
for another's acts, to which he has been no party, is a point 
which may be safely submitted to just minds. In my present 
state, however, I shall confine myself, at this moment, to a 
single sample of this dreadful wrong. 

' I have been charged by Mr. H. G. Bennett as the author of 
certain Letters to, and against, Lord Fitzwilliam. Of the 
letters alluded to (those I presume, of Hambden and Aris- 
tides, in the Morning Post,) I really know no more than does 
my assailant, or the man who has been in the grave thousands 
of years before my assailant was born. What I have written 
respecting Lord Fitzwilliam is, verbatim, what is at the 
bottom of this letter — a printed slip of the original essay (dated 
and published on the 27 th day of last October (18 1 9) in the 
MorningPost) serving for the compositor's copy in this reprint of 
the article. I am aware of the present pressure upon news- 
papers j but still, I supplicate its insertion from every Editor 
in whose breast the principles of fairness are not extinct— 
keeping in mind Mr. Bennett's attack upon me, relatively to 
Lord Fitzwilliam. 

' Such, and only such, is the style in which I have ever men- 
tioned and shall ever mention the name of Lord Fitzwilliam 
—the dimidium animce of Charles Fox. So few, alas, of 
Mr. Fox's real friends (usually engaging in House of Commons 
debates) are spared by the devourer Death, that my wonder is 
the less, at seeing myself, his nearly thirty years bosom ad- 
herent (not the least faithful nor the most interested— tried by 
all the tests which can put sincerity to the proof) abandoned 
' in my utmost need,' to the animadversions of Mr. Hume, and 
Mr. Bennett— without a tittle of evidence against me. If I 
live, I shall re-publish every article that I have written since 
the death of Mr. Fox, with my name in the title page, and 
defy any candid critic to find in any one of them either lie or 
libel— dereliction of principle or oblivion of friendship. Such 
will be my answer to Mr. Bennett's charge of apostacy. What 
further course I may pursue towards redress for this outrage will 
depend upon the hereafter. 

' Exhausted as I am, there is another point on which I must 
say a word. Mr. Bennett is described as having, by impli- 
cation, intimated that I had called the Queen a hag! I never 
so called her Majesty, nor any woman, since I was born. In 
the Essay to which allusion is made, the word hag is indeed in- 
troduced, but introduced quite ironically — with a meaning the 
exact reverse of what is imputed to it by Mr. Bennett— and in- 



xii 

tended only to scout the philosophy which contemplated 52 as 
an age past female frailty. Almost all that ha9 appeared re- 
specting a Bow-street warrant, 3rc. is erroneous. Until the re- 
covery of my health shall enable me to shape my course, I beg a 
suspension of judgment, and a distrust of all reports regarding 
me. 

' I am, Sir, 8cc. 

' DENIS O'BRYEN.' 



" DISMISSAL OF LORD FITZWILLIAM. 

" The earth that bears him bears not a nobler Gentleman 
than the Earl of Fitzwilliam. With perhaps more of what 
may be termed the moral trade-wind in his temper than Lord 
Eoremokt, Lord Fitzwilliam, in princely munificence, is 
full brother to that Nobleman : a knowledge of whose care- 
fully concealed generosities would, by their example, be a be- 
nefit to mankind. More than twenty-five years since, the late 
Mr. Hare (himself an assemblage of whatever is most delightful 
in a social being) detailed to the writer of this article, sum by 
sum, no less than 150,0001. given by Lord Egremont in mere 
largesses— one hundred and fifty thousand founds ! 
twenty-Jive years since ! And if the author were at liberty 
to state some instances of the Noble Lord's beneficence, only 
within the last two years, which accident has brought to his 
own knowledge, the reader's eyes, like the eyes of the writer 
(though a total stranger to Lord Egremont,) would overflow, 
at this casual tribute to a heart whose bounty is clogged with no 
other condition than that of— secresy. 

" In acts more or less of this complexion has passed the entire 
life of Lord Fitzwilliam. ' Fitz/ said Charles Fox (in a 
letter to the person who is my authority), ( Fitzwilliam is 
not only the most generous, but he is much about the most 
amiable of the race of man.' Existence is not possessed by any 
mortal, to whom more appropriately than to that Noble Earl, 
may be applied the celebrated line of Pope upon the famous 
Bishop of Cloyne. Changing Berkeley into Wentworth, pre- 
serves the poetry, and exhibits the Noble Lord as truly as in a 
mirror. 

* To Wentworth, every virtue under Heaven,' 

" As faithfully then, as if he were at his account before 
the throne of that same Heaven, does the writer hereof de- 
clare, that in the dismissal of this aggregate of ' every virtue 
under Heaven* from his Yorkshire Lieutenancy, he discerns 
the certain safety of English freedom. That single act 



Xlll 



assures the conservation of the British Constitution— and not 
to have done that act would, in the writer's most reflex judg- 
ment, have been all but an impeachable crime in the Govern- 
ment. To leave the modelling and command of a regiment, 
which regiment may be called out to-morrow in the disturbed 
districts — to continue all the powers civil and military, of a 
Lord Lieutenant in the Earl Fitzwilliam, under all the cir- 
cumstances of the case (which circumstances will be matter 
for future consideration) would, in the Government, have been 
setting an example pregnant with possible ruin, in a crisis when 
universal duty interdicted any measure, active or passive, hazard- 
ous of universal security. 

" It is the acknowledged excellence of Lord Fitzwilliam'^ 
character which best illustrates his removal. Ne Catoni quidem 
credendum est. Not even to Cato should too much be trusted. 
The British Constitution is a stake not to be rested upon com- 
plaisance, even to Lord Fitzwilliam : although he be a man 
whose very and only alloy has its root in a virtue. What is that 
alloy ? — excess of party feeling. Party feeling, within reasonable 
limits, is a virtue 5 but, e be not virtuous over-much.* 

* For virtue's self might too much zeal be had ; 
The worst of madmen is a saint inn mad.' 

<( Party saintship having made Lord Fitzwilliam a pro- 
moter and a partaker of the Yorkshire Meeting and Resolu- 
tions , the Government became divested of all discretion.— 
When the Government saw the honourably notorious opponent 
of all the phrenzies going under the name of Parliamentary 
Reform — when the Government saw the very person in whom 
(in 1 794, under an alarm which to the danger of the present 
moment was a comparative bugbear,) the patriot prevailed over 
the partizan ; when they saw the identical legislator who 
abandoned the man he loved, and joined the man whose whole 
anterior life he had resisted, merely from the impulse of public 
duty j when the Government saw the spotless, the upright, 
the praised and honoured Earl of Fitzwilliam confederating 
in manoeuvres which preferred party objects to national safety ; 
when this miraculous change appeared, in palpable word and 
deed, to their surprised senses, what else but treachery to their 
trust would have been the avoidable loss of a single day to the 
Ministers, in depriving even that Noble Lord of a public function, 
(he unrebuked retention of which would, by its impunity, have 
served only as a special invitation to others of a less unexcep- 
tionable description than Lord Fitzwilliam — to go much far- 
ther than his Lordship ?" 



XIV 



3. 

The following advertisement will show that my appeal to every 
publisher, of Mr, H. G. Bennett's speech ; ' in whose breast 
the principles of fairness were not extinct, failed of any im- 
pression upon more than four Editors, out of a corps which 
is scarcely numeral le I ! 

* Although writing by dictation, and from my bed, I can- 
not permit even a single day to pass, without returning, in 
this most public manner (preferably by advertisement), my 
indelible thanks to The Morning Chronicle, for inserting (though 
piecemeal), yesterday and the day before, my letter, dated the 
1 8th instant, together with its extract respecting Lord Fitzwilliam. 
A like expression of my deep obligation, for the like reason, is, 
in due measure, hereby most sincerely offered to The Courier, 
and to The New Times, notwithstanding the delay, in the latter 
Journal, of the extract, the re-printing of which, in the other 
Jonmals mentioned, has, in the intervening 24 hours, produced 
alleviations to the most wronged and oppressed of mankind. 
Excepting The Sun, in which paper my article of the 18th first 
appeared and the Morning Advertiser, I am not aware that my 
gratitude can embrace a single quarter beyond those just named. 
To those publications will be the comfort of not having denied 
the freedom of the press to one of its warmest advocates -, whilst 
for that accord, so honourable to their generous justice, my pro- 
found sense can only terminate with my existence. 

' Well aware of the proneness of die popular mind to the wrong 
side of every question ; and that reasoning might as well be ad- 
dressed to the roaring ocean as to the crowd till calm succeeds the 
tempest, I make neither reply, rejoinder, nor remark upon any 
thing that has been said, or written against me, either in, or out 
of Parliament — at present. I never was a courter of that crowd — 
not even in the 26 years, during which I stood upon a hustings at 
Covent-garden — my books having told me that the most assidu- 
ous conciliators of the multitude have generally been the worst 
men in all ages and nations. The proper public of a private citizen 
is his own circle ; and, even of that circle the favour of the frivo- 
lous is not worth possessing. Not so the good will and the good 
word of the considerate and the virtuous. To those if life is 
spared to me, I shall demonstrate my title. In Professor Ri- 
chardson's essay upon Hamlet, after an eulogy upon the fine qua- 
lities of that character (which I forbear repeating, because I ar- 
rogate no portion of the encomium to myself) , the commentator 
adds, " but all these qualities did not save him from being hated, 
persecuted and destroyed !" Destroyed I yet am not; still, 
however (his catastrophe apart), all the sufferings of Hamlet are 
delights — in comparison with the inflictions visited upon me. 

21, Craven-street, Oct. 22, 1820. ' DENIS O'BKYEN.' 



XV 



APPENDIX.— No. 3. 

I have surmised that the marked Bennettism of the news- 
papers to me may in some degree refer to the concluding para- 
graph of the following article of my writing, which appeared 
in the Morning Post of the 6th of last September (1820,) 
and which I have taken some pains to circulate among the Peers. 



THE QUEEN. 



1 Immodest words admit of no defence, 
For, want of decency is want of sense.' 

Roscommon. 

* Subscribing implicitly to the maxim of the Noble author of 
my motto, I should,^?' myself, be wholly at a loss for any 
colourable justification in transgressing against it. I perceived, 
however, that an article of mine, under my present initial, 
which appeared in this paper on Saturday se'nnight (the 26th 
ult.) had been taunted by the Morning Chronicle (of the 28th) 
as ' commenting on the evidence (meaning in the House of 
Lords) in language which that paper could not soil its pages 
with repeating. 1 ' If it were so it were a grievous fault ;' and 
grievously, yet unfeignedly should I kiss the rod of even such 
a censor, were my article fairly objectionable on the score pre- 
tended. The sentiment delivered by Lord Liverpool in 
Tuesday's debate, regarding the second cross-examination— is, 
indeed, a sentiment worthy of being engraved in gold, viz. that 
' he should never want the courage or the candour to surrender 
an opinion when convinced of its error.' In humble imitation 
of such an example, I should deem it a graceless perversion 
of any faculty with which the Almighty may have endued me, 
to shew that worst of all fopperies, the foppery of intellect, in 
any pertinacity respecting a subject so entirely ephemeral as 
the trifle which has been gravely stigmatised by the decorous 
Chronicle. 

' Illness, chiefly, and extreme occupation, have prevented my 
reading the print of the article in question till this day. As- 
terisks, I see, are put in the place of one line in my copy. I 
assure my good friend, the Editor of this Journal, that it was 
not my lubricity he was pruning in that substitution. He was 
chastening the text of that identical English classic who is 
deservedly designated ' the moral poet.' Endeavouring to ex- 
pose the philosophy of the ' Times' newspaper (a philosophy 
wholly novel as to the nature of woman), the omitted line was 
only a transposition of 

' No pulse that riots, and no blood that glows.' 



XVI 

In the same author, by the way, is to be found a couplet, which 
would almost seem to have anticipated the Morning Chronicle s 
false gallop of delicacy. 

• Before her eyes a handkerchief she spread, 
* To hide the flood of tears — she did not shed.' 

Judging, after more than a week's interlapse, in the coolness 
of reflection not in the vividness of writing, I remain to be 
convinced, that there is one sentence, or half a sentence, or 
two words, in the whole essay, which prudery itself would erase. 
There is, indeed, one word, which, though only prompted by 
playfulness, if the article were republished I would myself, by 
choice, omit — one word — no more. It is to the polluting career 
now under universal notice, that every evil is to be ascribed. 
When the hypocrisy of the Chronicle — when the lies of the 
Times — ' lies like the fathers that beget them as gross as a 
mountain,' and nearly as numerous as their paragraphs— when 
all these shall be ingulphed in the oblivious pool, then will 
British husbands and British parents deeply and loudly curse 
the person who has so contrived her external conduct (granting, 
for argument, that she may be essentially guiltless) as to render 
it impossible to discuss her history without defilement to her 
sex. 

' In respect to the Chronicle's imputation of my improper 
language being in ' a commentary upon the evidence,* that — 
that, (a very feather in the cap of the Chronicle) is no more 
nor less than a mere, sheer, falsehood. I pretend to know my 
duty to any possible Judicature much too well for falling into 
any such delinquency as commenting upon evidence pending a 
trial. And here I cannot avoid supplicating the House of 
Lords to be aware that, one of the first, one of the greatest, 
dearest, most prized rights born of, and nourished by, the 
English Constitution, rests at this juncture entirely upon their 
Lordships* tutelage. 

' Bring him before us,' said Judge Bulleu, ' and you shall 
see how we will dispose of him.' May an humble man, even 
though writing anonymously, beseech the attention of that 
illustrious House to the matter of the next paragraph ? 

' In May 1798, Mr. Caprl Loft (then resident in Suffolk as 
I trust he still is in health and happiness) received a letter from 
a friend of his in Kent ; stating, that a certain Gentleman in 
his neighbourhood busied himself in prejudicing some of the 
persons, impannelled for the Jury on the State trial, at Maid- 
stone, in that month, of Mr. Arthur O'Connor and of other 
prisoners, then charged with high treason. Mr. Loft made a 
journey to Maidstone, and apprised the Counsel for the prison- 



XV11 

ers of the constructive obstruction just referred to. Before a 
single name was called for the Jury, complaint was laid before 
the Court, by, (as nearly as memory serves me at a distance of 
twenty-two years,) the present Lord Chief Justice of the Com- 
mon Pleas, or the Master of the Rolls, regarding the irregula- 
rity mentioned in the letter to Mr. Loft. * Where is this 
person/ asked Judge Buller. * Not to be found, my Lord.' 
' Well, we can't go after him j you bring him here, and you 
shall see how we will dispose of him.' The present Lord 
Chancellor and Lord Reddesdale were eye and ear witnesses 
of this occurrence. The Gentleman complained of took special 
care not to be seen in the county till the commission was dis- 
solved. Else, his loyalty overmuch would not have saved him 
from being laid by the heels. 

' But, suppose the Gentleman so erring had, in a Maidstone 
newspaper, made it his daily task to accuse the witnesses of 
perjury — to anticipate the verdict with the utmost irreverence 
and contumacy — to pander to all the bad passions of the rab- 
ble—to stir up the besotted populace to a diurnal insult of the 
Judges in their way from the Court to their abodes — as the 
deliverer of Europe and his heroic comrade, who left his limb at 
Waterloo, have been regularly insulted by wretches whom the 
daily and weekly destroyers of the liberty of the Press auda- 
ciously denominate ' the people* — were such the conduct of the 
Gentleman alluded to by Mr. Loft's correspondent, what would 
ha?e been the exclamation, what the resolve, of Mr. Judge 
Buller and of his three co-Judges ? ! 

* Not the Kino is invested with a prerogative, not Lords nor 
Commons with a privilege, which does not exist for public 
purposes. For the sake of that public, I would, in due humi- 
lity, invoke the House of Peers, to spare a thought, even in 
their legislative pressure, upon the present deluge of never 
paralleled licentiousness. I would beseech that Noble House — 
for the conservation of that right, upon which so many other 
rights depend — of that right, from the use of which their purest 
delights are derived, in the perusal of those classic works of 
their country which drew their first breath from the right of 
publication without imprimatur — of that right under which so 
many of their own high order have immortalized their names— 
from { Noble Surrey* to the more poetically Noble Byron, in 
one line of literature j from Bacon to Bolingbroke in another 
line, and from Bolingbroke down to their own co-tempora- 
ries — for the desire of transmitting that paramount right, un- 
manned and uncrippled, to future ages — by all these reasons— 
by the generous motives and sublime animations which actuate 
elevated souls — by that solicitude for posterity which distin- 

b 



XV111 

guishes an ethereal nature, (parental for present times, provi- 
dent for future) from a narrow-minded clod of earth (cupidity 
his end, and calumny his means), whose instincts will not 
allow him to look beyond the pelf within his gripe — for and by 
all these considerations, I would beseech that August Body not 
to leave upon record the fatal precedent of a suicidal oblivion 
of a holy trust $ but manfully to discharge the sacred duty 
which they owe to the liberty of the press 3 and, in a warrant- 
able exercise of their undoubted authority, to lend their 
powerful arm towards rescuing that foremost of civil blessings 
from its most deadly enemies, the mercenary crew who drive a 
sordid traffic upon its abuse — utterly destitute of any care 
concerning it-— c if it lasts their time* 

September the 4th, 1820. N. 



APPENDIX.— No. 4. 

1. 

Sir Home PopharrCs Attestation. 

* Mr. Denis O'Bryen having given to me a copy of his letter 
to Mr. Windham, dated in October 1806, (which letter, 
though directed to Mr. Windham, was explained by Mr. 
O'Bryen to have been aimed generally at the ministerial sur- 
vivors of Mr. Fox) having learnt from Mr, O'Bryen that his 
requests for an answer to that application (which were alleged 
to have been made repeatedly during the six months that inter- 
vened before the close of the late government) produced none j 
the silence of Mr. Windham (construed by Mr. O'Bryen into 
sentiments neither unkind nor uncourteous to him) accompanied 
by some other very intelligible indications, appearing not to 
have left the least doubt in Mr. O'Bryen's mind of the abso- 
lute disfavour towards him of the late ministry ; feeling to the 
quick the deplorable state of Mr. O'Bryen's affairs, at such a 
time of life as his j under all these circumstances I exercised 
my own discretion, with a view to the interests of a man whom 
I had known since I was a youth, and for whose welfare I am 
most anxious. 

' As I have no doubt that the subject of a private conversation 
in reference to Mr. O'Bryen, stated to have recently passed in 
the House of Commons, had its origin in a conduct on my 
part dictated by the considerations which I have just described, 
1 feel it incumbent on me to declare, as I do hereby, upon my 
honour, 



XIX 

< That I have most strenuously advised Mr. O'Bryen to pursue 
what appeared to me the most advantageous course possible in 
his situation 5 that it is in the fullest conviction I affirm, that the 
adoption, by Mr. O'Bryen, of such my earnest advice, would 
have changed the character of his fortune, brightened his pros- 
pects, lessened the load of his embarrassments, and rescued his 
mind from the vexation inseparable from the pressure of his 
difficulties 5 but that ail my intreaties have hitherto proved 
fruitless. That I have, more especially since the appearance of 
Faustus and Aristides in the Morning Post, re-urged, re-im- 
portuned, and re-supplicated Mr. O'Bryen, in every shape and 
mode, by letter and personally, to the line of conduct which I 
before recommended ; and that it is with deep concern I declare 
that I have done so in vain. 

• HOME POPHAM.' 
Charles Street, St. James's, 
July I8O9. 

Compared by me the 17 th of July, I8O9. 

No. 3, Gray's-Inn Square. J. PALMER. 




Letter of the Lord Chief Commissioner Adam, franked from 
Wohourn the 18£A of July, I8O9, referring to Sir 
Home Popham's attestation. 
< Dear O'Bryen, 

e Our long repast made me take a nap here on Sunday, 
after dinner,— but yesterday I rode fifteen miles, and danced 
till three in the morning, — -the Duchess gave a most charming 
fete at her Thornery. I have ruminated much on our very 
interesting conversation ; and although the unvaried tissue of 
uprightness which I have experienced in you, rendered me as 
certain when I heard the calumny, of its falsehood, as I am 
now j yet there is a satisfaction in having had my belief con- 
firmed. Here is a beautiful day ; I am going to dine at three 
o'clock with all the farmers, and from five till dark saunter 
through the woods, leaving the great to their turtle and 
Champagne. 

' Your's ever, 

W. Adam/ 



XX 



APPENDIX.— No. 5. 

(Copy.) 
Precept from the Committee on Sinecures. 

1 House of Commons, March 25th, 1811. 
' I am directed by the Committee on Sinecure Offices to re- 
quest your answer to the following questions. 

(Signed) ' Henry Martin, Chairman. 
To Denis O'Bryen, Esq., Marshal of the Vice Admiralty 
Court at the Cape. 



Mr. D. O'bryen's Answer. 

' Craven Street, March 3 1st, 1811. 

• In answer to the precept of the Committee, conveyed to my 
house on the 26th instant, but not received by me for some 
time after, I have the honour of replying, That 

*,After dedicating, according to the example of many among 
the best and brightest names in English annals, near thirty 
years to political studies and operations, in one of those confe- 
deracies which the genius of a free State necessarily generates $ 
and without the existence of which no state ever was or ever 
will be free j after having, upon numberless occasions, vindicated 
the British Constitution, never forgetting, in the warmestardour 
for the rights of the people, those great trusts, the rights of 
the Crown, (labours, of which I am not without hope of 
leaving memorials that may, without disrepute to his ashes, 
survive the labourer j) never apprehending that such exercises 
or any eventual rewards that might follow the fidelity and 
purity of their practice, would be liable to degradation or 
disparagement by ex post facto theories, the fashion of which, 
in my humble judgment, tends to institute the falsest standard 
of merit, to deter all who are not fortune's favorites from the 
cultivation of pursuits, heretofore deemed liberal and laud- 
able j and, by consequence, to throw the powers and the cares 
of Government into the hands of those whom neither history 
nor philosophy shows to be uniformly the best adapted to its 
duties, namely, the fat-pursed, or the first-born j— the whole 
of my adult life having been devoted to such courses, I re- 
ceived in 1806, towards a remuneration, the Office of Marshal 
of the Vice Admiralty Court at the Cape : and though I never 
foresaw that I should be over-hauled for my treasures thence 
arising, I proceed, in respectful obedience to the commands of 
the Committee, to give true answers to their several questions. 



XXI 



Questions. 
1 What is the nature of 
the office of Marshal of 
the Vice Admiralty Court 
at the Cape of Good 
Hope? 



* Do you perform any, 
and what part, of the 
duties of that office in 
person ? 



' What is the amount of 
the Salary and emolu- 
ments of your office as 
received by yourself, or 
by your Deputy ? 



I. 

Answers, 

* The nature of the office is the 
execution, under the Vice Admiralty 
Court at theCape^ of the function sap- 
pertaining to the Marshalship of the 
Admiralty Court in Doctors' Com- 
mons. Except in the miniature of 
a Colonial Court compared with the 
magnitude of the Superior Court in 
this Country, the duties (which are 
various and important) had been 
generally the same. 

II. 

* I perform none of the duties in 
person. My health, my time of 
life, and my private affairs not ad- 
mitting of my personal execution 
of my office j I availed myself of 
the power, expressly vested in me 
by my patent, of providing a capa- 
ble deputy ; diminishing my own 
possible gains by a proportionate 
remuneration to my substitute. 

III. 

' I never have, nor has my Deputy 
to my knowledge, received one shil- 
ling under the name of salary. No 
salary is annexed to the office, and 
I understand that in peace it is not 
worth one farthing — the amount 
of all my emoluments, actually 
received by myself from my ap- 
pointment in August 1806 to the 
present hour (being near five years) 
is no less than 2193Z. l6s. 3d. As 
my allowance to my Deputy is one 
third of the profits, a sum equal to 
one half of the said 21 93/. l6s. 3d. 
has been retained for himself by my 
Deputy. If, however, regulations 
which (unjustifiably I presume) have 
been introduced into the Court for 
some time, had existed during the 
whole time of ray appointment, the 



xxn 



* From what sources do 
the Salary and emolu- 
ments of your office arise, 
as received by yourself, 
or by your Deputy ? 



said sum of 2ig3/. 16s. 3d. must 
have been pared down upwards of 
two thirds -, so that instead of the 
large gain of 21Q31. l6s. 3d. I should 
have received during the whole period 
(of 5 years) less than 700/. The 
rights and perquisites of which my 
office (contrary, as I am instructed, 
to the practice of all other Vice 
Admiralty Courts) has been stripped, 
have been claimed by my represen- 
tatives at the Cape. Whether any 
thing may come of that claim de- 
pends, st p*esent, upon the comforts 
of litigation. 

IV. 

' The emoluments of my office, 
however exorbitant, arise, entirely, 
from naval captures — not a shilling 
comes from any other source. The 
sinecure quality of my appointment 
must now more than ever be obnox- 
ious to popular jealousy, inasmuch 
as the taking of the Mauritius and 
Bourbon being likely to make a 
Vice Admiralty Jurisdiction in that 
distant solitary sea, a court sine 
causa, my office necessarily becomes, 
in the most strict and literal sense 
of the designation, an office sine 
cura. 



' By whom is your De- 
puty apppointcd, and by 
whom approved ? 



• Have you or your De- 
puty any custody of the 
public money or records ? 



' My Deputy is appointed by my- 
self. In the nature of the thing it 
is probable that the Court would 
disapprove of an incompetent De- 
legate. 

VI, 

' I am not aware that any such 
custody constitutes any part of the 
duties of ray office, with the excep- 
tion of a record of the office busi- 



XXlll 

VII. 

« Is any, and what se- * My Deputy gives security to me 
curity, given by yourself for a faithful execution of his depu- 
or by your Deputy ? tation. I have never been asked 

to give any security. If any had 
been required, I was, as I am, al- 
ways ready to give such, to any 
amount. 

(Signed) ' Denis O'Bryen.' 

Directed to the Committee on Sinecure Offices, or Henry Mar- 
tin, Esq. Chairman. 



APPENDIX.— No. 6. 
'DISMISSAL OF LORD FITZWILLIAM.— No. 2/ 

' This topic, so far from being exhausted, will on the meeting 
of parliament be as fresh as on the day of its occurrence. The 
spotless, and (excess of partyism out of the question) the 
universally irreproachable character of Lord Fitzwilliam, 
affords too much polemical picking to be thrown aside as a bare 
bone, by those who deem the crisis a good one for subduing 
the court—- when radicalism stalks abroad without simulation $ 
and Spencean Philanthropy (the vital spring of all mob move- 
ments) breaks through the disguises of her lamb-like votaries — 
when Reform of Parliament is discarded for Parliamentary 
annihilation ; hereditary Royalty denounced as a primary 
grievance 5 Republicanism avowed in the set terms of special 
pleading; and the constitutional impossibility asserted, as a 
given fact, that the actual Sovereign has forfeited the Crown — 
when the employers of the country are arraigned as usurpers ; 
the employee? proclaimed as their victims 5 and a servile struggle 
only, from mere precaution, not actually commenced — when 
Jesus Christ is proscribed as an impostor ; his morals, till the 
present era the stumbling block to infidelity, scouted as 
mockery 5 and his religion, the grand civilizer of England 
(leaving the sacred subject of his theology untouched) stigma- 
tised as a nursery of fraud, corruption, and tyranny. The 
candidates for government who seize such a juncture for ousting 
their antagonists, will scarcely fail to place the dispossession 
of such a man as Lord Fitzwilliam in the van of their ope- 
rations — the very frontispiece of their hostility. 

1 That the high name of Lord Fitzwilliam served strongly 
to illustrate and decidedly to justify his removal, was a main 
point in the former number of this article, which has been de- 



XXIV 

• 

Iaycd by illness, but which, if continued, shall not, consciously 
to the author, interfere with, nor by reiteration impair, the 
arguments of other and abler writers. 

• Additional light is thrown upon this measure of Lord Liver- 
pool's Administration — by comparison with that of Mr. Pitt, 
in its removal of Lord Fitzwilliam's Noble Predecessor. 
The Newspapers, themselves mistaken, have misled the Public 
in regard to that transaction. The toast given by the Duke of 
Norfolk was not, totidem verbis ' the sovereignty of the 
people f. nor was the Whig Club the scene of the real toast. 

' Avoiding a profitless discussion about the origin of govern- 
ment, the principle is here assumed, that whether incipiently 
from God or from the people, the present British frame of 
civil rule is both of and for the people. Entangled in no 
theory respecting divine right, the Mighty Act which ultimately 
placed the Crown of England upon the House of Brunswick, 
recognised the paramount value of hereditary royalty by making 
Jambs the First ' a stock and root of inheritance )' at the 
same moment that it practically asserted a supreme national 
faculty in a supreme national emergency. With a penal law 
upon the statute book against denying the competence of Par- 
liament to limit the Regal succession, the congruity does not 
easily present itself, how any individual of even the Royal 
Family could refuse to drink the sovereignty of the people in 
its English, constitutional sense. In this sense, its true sense, 
the toast is as distant from any thing rebellious or irreverent 
to the King, as the Convention, which associated the Prince of 
Orange with the lineal heiress of the throne, differs from the 
rabble of Jack Cade, of Lord George Gordon, or of Mr. 
Hunt. But, the very nature of events is sometimes changed 
by circumstances. The same proceeding becomes innoxious or 
offensive according to epochs and accompaniments. 

'It is gracious towards the dead, and honourable to the living, 
that the nativities of Mr. Fox and of Mr. Pitt should still be 
celebrated by their surviving admirers. Such a tribute (not 
therefore the less a gangrene to putrid bosoms) is the free 
offering, of free minds, in a free state, to transcendent genius, 
even in two men who, like Aristides and Cymon before them, 
did not leave the means of defraying their respective funerals. 
Some unreflecting Foxites occasionally reproach the celebrators 
of Mr. Pitt's birthday as r owing obligation to that great 
Minister' — quite ignorant that the highest compliment is enve- 
loped in such an accusation. There is a saying attributed to 
the first Premier of the present reign, viz. that he never pro- 
vided for a supplicant without making one man ungrateful and 
twenty men discontented— a true and terrible picture of base 



XXV 

mankind — much the more so that the dictum is in reality older 
by thousands of years than the Duke of Newcastle. Were 
the allegation founded, which is manifestly false, that the vene- 
rators of that once tuneful tongue now sealed in eternal mute- 
ness, were inspired only by a remembrance of favours where 
further advancement is hopeless, the fact would imply the 
existence of a virtue the more valuable because of its rarity. 
Of all the stains and shames of Jacobinism, its exclusion of 
gratitude from the pale of morality is the very vilest. If there 
be a rule universal and infallible, it is this — that no stable good 
quality will ever be found in a heart which, when its turn is 
answered, becomes insensible to obligation. 

e So much digressively. 

e It was upon one of the celebrations of Mr. Fox's birthday, 
at which the Duke of Norfolk presided, that the Duke gave 
the toast which caused the privation of his Lieutenancy and 
Regiment. Immediately on taking away the table cloth, his 
Grace stood up and uttered these words :• — Gentlemen, let us 
begin by drinking our sovereign— — throughout the company 
there was a general note of preparation for the King's health, 
when the Duke unexpectedly added — ' the people' The Duke 
commented briefly upon the principle of his toast, referring 
very shortly to General Washington, and to the outset of the 
American war. This incident took place on the 24th of Janu- 
ary* 179&- 1° about a week after it, the removal of the Duke 
became known to the public. At such a festival it is obvi- 
ous that Mr. Fox could not have been present. But upon the 
next meeting of the Whig Club (the 6th of the subsequent 
month of February) of which meeting, also, the Duke of 
Norfolk was Chairman, Mr. Fox (apprized of what was soon 
well known, that the slap given to the Duke had gone to the 
quick) Mr. Fox, with his characteristic generosity, in a speech 
at this meeting aimost petitioned that his name might be struck 
out of the Privy Council j in order to his sharing the Duke's 
court disgrace. Nothing was farther from offensive than the 
intention of the Noble Duke in his toast. There was, never- 
theless, an infelicity in the maimer of it ; and in that manner 
consisted its virus. Neither in matter, however, nor in mode 
is that occurrence to be any more compared with the example 
set by Lord Fitzwilliam respecting the late Yorkshire Meet- 
ing, than the Convention of Parliament in 1688 resembled the 
Delegates, ' as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth,' who 
about three years since assembled in London to brush away 
King, Lords, and Commons, as so many cobwebs ; and to 
tread upon the neck of this nation as they would crush a 
spider. 

' Misery acquaints us with strange companions,' Exuberant 

c 



XXVI 



as the age has been in wonders, is any one of them more mar- 
vellous than to see the same Lord Fitzwilliam, who (at a 
period of time when Spencean Philanthropy had never been 
heard of — when universal suffrage was the mere reverie of an 
isolated theorist) could, from terror of imaginary innovation, 
break the bands that bound him in virtuous confederacy with 
some of the best and brightest of mortals — in reality no more 
innovators than himself — that the same Lord Fitzwilliam, 
one of the most moral of men and purest of possible christians, 
should allow party feeling to place him upon a county hustings, 
sidling some of the apostles of a faith that reviles as 'fraud 
and mockery* the Christianity which, with ' the solemn temples' 
brought at once ' the gorgeous palaces,' the yeoman's farms 
and the peasant's cottages into this island, (at that time the den 
of the most beastly degradation) the Christianity which changed 
its entire face, raising and sublimating the whole island into the 
glorious thing it now is, from a vileness that could fawn and 
fall down before such a monster as Claudius ; hugging their 
ehains as a blessing, and deprecating freedom as a curse — the 
Christianity which congregated the whole population in the 
mild communion of him who came in ' Majesty of Meekness,' 
in place of the horrible idolatry which propitiated its demon 
divinities with human blood — this uncouth incorporation of 
Lord Fitzwilliam with the genius of radicalism being for the 
pretext of assembling Parliament— after Parliament had been 
regular ly- convoked to assemble ? 

* That Bonaparte, after sitting upon Louis the XlVth's 
throne, should be caged in a British islet is, indeed, amazing ; 
but is it more so, than to see the Earl Fitzwilliam and Mr. 
Wooller upon the same political platform — rebus sic stanti- 
bus? 

' What ! Is Lord Fitzwilliam charged with wishing well to 
the creed of Mr. Wooller ? This sapient question is best 
answered by another short interrogatory. Did the Duke of 
Orleans wish for the guillotine ? 

November 18, 1819. ' D.' 

If Mr. Bennett should hereafter act in public 
life with any other than his present Party, and 
treats his former political associates as I have con- 
ducted myself towards the friends of Mr. Fox, 
his fate will be hard indeed, if he receive not 
better measure than he has dealt to me. 

D. O'BRYEN. 

21. Craven St, Nov. 22d, 1820. 



XXV11 



APPENDIX— No. 7. 

The following letter, written by me in a day 
or two after the refusal stated in page 36, was 
enclosed to, and reinclosed from, the Duke of 
Bedford in Paris. His Grace's two letters at Paris 
I have not yet found among my papers. From 
memory, however, I am certain that the Duke 
said, in substance, that he had burnt my two first 
letters alluded to in my third letter (the following) 
and that, concluding I wished to have the follow- 
ing back, as well as the two that preceded it, the 
Duke, together with his reply, put the following 
under an invelope — the identical letter so received 
by, and returned from, his Grace being the com- 
positor's copy for this work. 

Mr. D. O'Bryen to the Duke of Bedford, 
Both in Paris. 

* Hotel de Londres, Rue de UEchiquier^ 
< October the 25th, 1815. 
f My Lord, 
' With all deference to your Grace's exalted rank, and with 
every respect for your amiable moral character, I take the 
liberty of requesting the return to me of the two letters with 
which I, most reluctantly, troubled your Grace on Friday and 
Sunday last. Written in haste, agitation, and confidence, I 
made no copies of them ; and the mortification, growing with 
the growth of every fresh reflection, which fills my lacerated 
heart, makes me anxious to be in possession of a correct 
transcript of the two communications. The originals your 
Grace will find safe under seal in Hamilton Place at your 
return to England. Though sore and surprised at the nature of 
your Grace's answer when I received it, my pain and astonish- 
ment are only the more encreased, the more I think of the 
subject. I begged in my second letter (which second letter 
put the required loan wholly out of question) that your Grace 
would * for the love of God,' allow me an opportunity of 
explanation upon the topic, so replete with every delicacy, there- 
in referred to, in case any doubt existed in your mind. Your 
Grace neither grants the opportunity, nor disclaims the necessity 



XXV111 

of it j and I am left by your silence under the most distressing 
implications, upon a point as clear and pure on my side, as on 
that of ' any inhabitant of Heaven.'* 

As nothing shall ever induce me to owe to your Grace the 
slightest favour ; and as it is not likely that I should ever 
trouble you with a letter after this I am now writing, I really, 
with all submission, shall claim the right of showing that your 
conduct to me is neither deserved by me, nor worthy of 
yourself. 

My Lord, in whatever region political liberty has existed, 
there have co-existed parties. Parties are generated by freedom, 
and where parties are put down, freedom will not long survive 
them. Mental powers and worldly possessions are so unequally 
distributed, that civil associations would be impossible, without 
interchanges of the gifts of God and the gifts of fortune. 
Poverty of purse is balanced by activity of mind j and greatness 
is softened by a sense of its political nothingness without ad- 
herents. The rich help the poor j and protection is repaid by 
zeal and by talents. Thus it was in Greece. Thus it was in 
Rome. Thus it was, and is, and ever will be, in England 
until the essence of its constitution is wholly engulphed in the 
whirlpool of the multitude, or in the vortex of the court. 
Your Grace's ancestors were a portion, a glorious portion 
indeed, of a party j and it is only by ignorance, or by tyranny, 
with its true born imp corruption, that party is decried and 
run at. 

My Lord, I venture to affirm, that in the wide circle of 
partizanship the humble writer of this letter has never been 
surpassed. There is no honest service that I have not perform- 
ed. There is no suffering that I have not endured. My liberty 
has been struck at often — my life once. Over and over oppor- 
tunities have been by me declined of ample provision, if I had 
cultivated interest at the expence of fidelity. In bodily efforts 
not yielding to those who had nothing else to contribute. In 
intellectual labour outstripping even the exclusively contem- 
plative. In those manceuvrings which are compounded of 
the labours of both the body and the mind, not inferior to 
either confederate or opponent. Upon every part of my history, 
however, I shall drop a curtain, excepting only such passages 
of it as bear some relation to your Grace. 

I say then first, generally, that no individual has more 
assiduously strove, upon every occasion that occurred, to render 
all honour to the noble name of Russell than I have ■ and I say, 
particularly, that to none of the high personages of the Whig 

* This passage refers to the subject of Mr. Fox's letters, 
mentioned in pages 29, 30, 31, and 32, which letters were 
delivered by me to the Lord Chief Commissioner. 



XXIX 

party, have my homages and devotions been more marked or 
more efficacious than to your Grace. Although the West- 
minster contest of Trentham and Vandeput took place before 
I was born, yet it happens to be in my certain knowledge, that 
the single contribution towards that election of your Grace's 
grandfather was no less a sum than 50001. Your Grace, I am 
persuaded, would do no less for Mr. Fox — -but I so managed 
the only contest for Mr. Fox, since your accession to the duke- 
dom, that his election did not cost your Grace quite 2001. I 
know that you praised my management of that election— 
Laudatur et alget — but so my Lord, did the Duke of Northum- 
berland (to me a personal stranger) under his own hand. In fact, 
to withhold commendation was impossible. Of the two other 
contributors to that contest (2001. each) one still survives — and 
long may he so, as a blessing to mankind. Westminster con- 
tests had cost these noble persons (the late Duke of Devonshire 
and Lord Fitzwilliam) such masses of thousands, that both spoke 
of that victory (that of 1802) so cheaply achieved, as a prodigy. 
It was the only election in which the ministry of the money was 
in me alone) and it was the only one, of which the subscribers ever 
hadone shilling of their subscriptions returned to them — though 
the whole fund was only 8001. My Lord, I know not whether 
your Grace will be pleased to admit that election to have been 
a service — but I am sure that to none of the noble contributor! 
was it productive of more convenience than to your Grace. It 
enabled you to oblige an additional friend with an additional seat 
in parliament, which was destined by your Grace for Mr. Fox. 
Your Grace, upon a visit to Lord Torrington in Windsor Forest, 
rode over to St. Anne's Hill, in June 1802} where you found 
me in the very act of arguing upon his proclaimed retirement 
from public life with Mr. Fox — in the book room. You said 
that you wished to arrange about the general election, then 
expected daily. Mr. Fox begged of your Grace not to think 
of him. On the previous Sunday, Lords Thanet, Lauderdale, 
Robert Spencer, and General Fitzpatrick, after dining at St. 
Anne's, reported at Brookes's, on Mr. Fox's own authority, 
that he had finally given up public life. On the next day I found 
Sheridan (with Mr. Fox's concurrence certainly) canvassing in 
Pall Mall I advised him to stop ; and straightways I set off 
for St. Anne's. It was on the day after, that your Grace came 
there from Lord Torrington's. The conversation finished with 
Mr. Fox's replying to your Grace in these words. ' If I come 
into parliament at all, it should be for Westminster.' My 
Lord, I never quitted St. Anne's Hill till I won him from his 
purpose. I carried my point not by influence — I never 
possessed the least bit in any quarter. I subdued him by that 
which wa3 never thrown away upon him — fair reasoning. My 



XXX 



Lord, I am ignorant whether thai will be accounted a service 
— but all the world kno\v9 that out of it grew those events 
which made him a Minister and your Grace Lord Lieutenant of 
Ireland. Your Grace had, at that general election, the honour 
conjointly with Mr. Fox, of carrying the Middlesex return, 
by my instrumentality j and I took special care, although, 
considerable expenses were incurred in Lord William's name, 
that your Grace should not be at the los9 of one farthing. 
Having got to the last page of my sheet of paper, I shall dwell 
no longer upon indirect services - } but refer to a service which is 
directly personal to your Grace. 

The most virulent, indeed the only, calumniator of your 
late illustrious and admirable brother, was by me so completely 
' turned inside out' (I quote those who were in no wise partial 
to myself,) that he has never dared to venture another line, 
although in his last letter to the Lord Chief Commissioner 
Adam, he expressly lays in his claim to be * at his dirty work 
again.' However beaten blind in the course of the correspon- 
dence with Mr. Adam, still he clings to his right of rejoinder. 
It was this malicious pertinacity which provoked me to fall 
upon him ; and the thing was done so effectually that he has 
never since dared to say a single word in his own defence. No 
article ever had more diffusion than the article in question— for 
it was republished in divers other channels, besides the Morn- 
ing Chronicle. I never even to this hour, have seen the face 
of this person. I had no earthly incitement but what 
respected your Grace. My Lord, I am drawing- to the end of 
my space and must cease further enumerations. If in the delicate 
and wonder-working powers of the Lord Chief Commissioner, 
my affairs have been aided from your Grace's stores, such, 
assuredly, was no act of mine. It would be hard, indeed, 
that considerations, unknown to me, in their origin, and wholly 
independent of me, should be made an onus upon my feelings. 
I never asked any thing of your Grace in all my life for myself, 
excepting one hundred pounds last Friday to take me out of 
this strange country and to purchase what may meliorate my 
prospects for ever— and, in this strange land and for such a 
purpose, it has pleased your Grace's goodness to refuse me. 
But, my Lord, you will not refuse to let me have my two 
former letters, which shall be restored most faithfully. As 
they will cause no other trouble to your Grace than merely 
sealing them up, may I supplicate your Grace to send them 
here as soon as possible, at all events in the course of this day 
or night. Every hour increases my straits in this expensive 
capital, and I wish to depart from it in the morning. I have the 
honour to be, my Lord, 

1 Your Grace's obedient and very humble servant, 

■ D. O'BRYENV 



XXXI 

The copying of documents must stop some- 
where. Divers letters of the Duke of Bedford 
to me are, at this moment, upon my writing 
table. The following closing paragraph, extracted 
from one of them, (not marked private, nor at all 
of a private nature,) will enable the reader to judge 
whether there was any thing very extraordinary in 
the Paris application to his Grace from me, whose 
intercourse with the Duke, (unrippled by the 
slightest misunderstanding) had been of little less 
standing than 30 years at the date of that appli- 
cation, viz. October, 1815. His Grace's letter is 
dated c Phcenix Park, December the 21st, 1806,' 
and the extract from it is in these words : 

6 When I recollect that your brother's interests were 
c recommended to me by you, I assure you I feel much 
c satisfaction at being afforded so early an opportunity of 
c proving the deep sense I entertain of the steady/firm, 
( and unshaken attachment you have shown to those 
6 principles upon which I have acted through life ; and 
6 which bound us by common ties of affection to that 
' great, and virtuous, and excellent man, whom it has 
6 been our irreparable misfortune to lose. 
6 Ever, my dear Sir, 
c With true regard, 

c Most faithfully your's, 
(Signed.) < Bedford: 

N. B. Trusting that I have demonstrated the 
6 universal error' of Mr. Bennett, (of Mr. Ben- 
nett, a Whig, and a Foxite,) this narrative is now 
terminated. 



Finis, 



^ 



